International Expert Meeting on Cultural Heritage and Disaster Resilient Communities
Within the Framework of theThird UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR)TOKYO STRATEGY MEETING
11–13 March 2015
Emerald Hall, 28F, Main Tower,
Shinagawa Prince Hotel, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan

Contents
Session 1: Cultural Heritage and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)
Session 2: Roles of Cultural Heritage in Understanding Disaster Risk
Session 3: Strengthening Governance and Institutions to Manage Disaster Risk
Session 4: Preparedness for Response, Recovery and Reconstruction −Part I−
Session 5: Preparedness for Response, Recovery and Reconstruction −Part II−
Session 6: Investing in Disaster Risk for Sustainable Development

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Session 1

Cultural Heritage and Disaster Risk Reduction[Facilitators] Giovanni Boccardi, Kumiko Shimotsuma

Contents
Welcome Address

Johei Sasaki
Masanori Aoyagi

Opening Remarks

Giovanni Boccardi
Stefano De Caro

Introduction to the International Expert Meeting

Joseph King

Keynote Presentation (1)Understanding Culture and Risk: Peopleʼs Culture, Organizational
Culture and the Protection of Heritage

Terry Cannon

Keynote Presentation (2)Cultural Heritage, Societal Cohesion, and Sustainable
Development

Yasmeen Lari

Keynote Presentation (3)Cultural Heritage and Resilience of Communities

Takamasa Saito

Overall Discussion

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Welcome Address
Johei Sasaki
President,
National Institutes for Cultural Heritage (NICH), Japan

The Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan (ACA),UNESCO, ICCROM, and NICH have organized theInternational Experts Meeting on Cultural Heritage
and Disaster Resilient Communities within theframework of the Third UN World Conference ofDisaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR), with generous
support by ICOM and ICOMOS. I am extremely
happy to be able to warmly welcome numerous participants from around the world to Japan for thisInternational Expert Meeting.
I would like to especially thank Mr. Masanori
Aoyagi, ACA Commissioner; Mr. Giovanni Boccardi, Chief of Emergency Preparedness and Response, Culture Sector of UNESCO and Dr. Stefano
De Caro, Director-General of ICCROM, and all distinguished specialists from both Japan and abroadfor taking the time out from their busy schedules tojoin us here today. The meeting will last until March
17th, in Tokyo as well as in Sendai, and I ask everyone for cooperation and contribution for the success of this meeting.
Today, March 11th, marks the fourth year sincethe 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. I again express my deepest condolences to those who losttheir lives and extend my sympathies to many people affected by the disaster and remain living in
temporary housings to where they were evacuated.
Following the devastating earthquake, NICH set
up an office in the National Research Institute forCultural Properties, Tokyo, to develop culturalproperty recovery projects. An emphasis has been
put on the recovery of cultural properties in Fukushima Prefecture, where a significant number ofdisaster affected cultural properties remain isolated
due to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster.
Various large scale disasters, including landslides, water and wind damage caused by typhoon,
and volcanic eruptions have occurred throughout
Japan in recent years. There is also a concern about
imminent massive earthquakes such as Nankai
Trough Earthquake and Tokyo Inland Earthquake,so the establishment of an effective recovery system is inevitably needed. We have been confronted− 15 −

by numerous disasters in the past, including theGreat Hanshin Awaji Earthquake and the Great
East Japan Earthquake. Although we held many
discussions after these disasters, we may not have
responded as efficiently as we wanted. Now, however, each of us should be more than ever determined to quickly react to emergency situations.
Particularly, just as preventative medicine is recognized as an effective means of averting illnesses,
preventative preservation for cultural heritage
should also be emphasized, and practical approaches should be developed.
Considering these circumstances, the Headquarters of the National Task Force for the Japanese Cultural Heritage Disaster Risk Mitigation
Network was established within NICH in July 2014,
with myself appointed as executive director. Collaborating with ACA, the Network aims to develop
human resources, gather, analyze, and disseminate
information, and conduct research necessary to
mitigate disaster risk and build an effective rescue
and recovery system in times of emergency.
With all these tasks we must undertake, it is avery timely opportunity to have various experts
gather in one place and exchange ideas today. The
Tokyo Strategy Meeting, which runs from today until the 13th, provides a platform to discuss future ofcultural heritage DRR and lay out points that need
to be addressed within the “post-2015 Frameworkfor Disaster Risk Reduction” adopted at WCDRR in
Sendai. I look forward to each person participatingin this meeting actively discussing and reflecting
upon the significance of cultural heritage DRR, sothat the outcomes of the discussion will encourage
further meetings and will play a positive role in development of international DRR initiatives. I also
anticipate the meeting will become the first step inconstructing a cooperative network between organizations within and outside of Japan.
Finally, to close my remarks I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the people whose efforts have made the holding of this meeting possible, and I pray for every success of this Meeting.
Thank you.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Welcome Address
Masanori Aoyagi
Commissioner,
Agency for Cultural Affairs (ACA),
Government of Japan

I would like to extend a very warm welcome to theparticipants who have come from all over the world.
It is my privilege to address you at this opening of
the International Expert Meeting on Cultural Heritage and Disaster Resilient Communities.
It gives me great pleasure that this third UN
World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction has
given us the opportunity to invite the leaders in cultural heritage disaster prevention from all over theworld, and that we can carry out discussions andexchange views on the future development of cultural heritage disaster prevention.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to
all of you.
Japan is considered to be a nation prone to many
disasters. Earthquakes occur frequently, and many
typhoons hit Japan every year, and there are also
occurrences of heavy rain, tornadoes and volcanic
eruptions. I feel that the damage inflicted on cultural heritage due to insects and pests as a result ofclimate changes and urban development is getting
more extensive.
In particular, the Great East Japan Earthquake,
which occurred on this very day four years ago,
triggering a tsunami and a nuclear power plant accident, has caused immense damage over a large
area. Even now, many people are still affected andare unable to regain a secured livelihood. I would
like to express my deepest condolences to those
who lost their lives and extend my sympathies tothose who were affected by the earthquake.
In the field of cultural heritage as well, prefectural and local municipality office staff members
have lost their lives, and restoration works are being carried out in extreme conditions.
Not only for people who were affected by the disaster but also for everyone, it is a highly stressful
period. This is a moment when we need to rethink
the meaning of culture, art and cultural heritage.
The grievances and hardships after the disasterare different for everyone. The strength of culture
is needed for people to come to terms with their
feelings, to regain the strength to communicate
with other people once again, and to reconstruct

the social bonds in local communities that were lostin order to tie up with the hopes for reconstruction.
After the Great East Japan Earthquake, ACA has
been reviewing measures for promoting culture
and art through discussions on innovative approaches for disaster recorery. Also, ACA has beenworking on restoration projects for nationally important cultural heritage affected by the disaster,and at the same time has been involved in surveys,
support and temporary measures for many othercultural properties. It is necessary to restructure
the organization to facilitate quick responses intimes of such a large scale disaster. As part of thiseffort, ACA is providing financial support for NICH
to carry out promotion programs for cultural heritage risk reduction network.
I think at this point of time when we need tothink about how the experiences from the Great
East Japan Earthquake can be applied for the future
protection of cultural heritage, it is very beneficial
for Japan to have all of you here to share information and exchange opinions at this International Expert Meeting.
Personally, I was involved in archaeological survey research related to the recovery of natural andcultural environment affected by the eruptions at
the foothill of Mt. Vesuvius volcano in southern Italy. As a specialist, I greatly look forward to this International Expert Meeting as an opportunity to
expand the circle of international cooperation forstrengthening the resilience of cultural heritage
and the resilience of local communities through culture and cultural heritage.
Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude to
UNESCO, ICCROM, NICH, ICOMOS, and ICOM.
Also, I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Kenzo Toki of Ritsumeikan University, who introduced the conditions of cultural heritage under
the disaster prevention framework at the 2nd UN
World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction andalso made great contributions to the opening of thismeeting.

− 16 −

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Opening Remarks
Giovanni Boccardi
Chief of Emergency Preparedness and Response,
Culture Sector, UNESCO

Good morning, everyone, Mr. Aoyagi, Mr. Sasaki, I
wish to thank you again for convening us all here. I
would like to say a few words on behalf of UNESCO, also on behalf of my colleagues Tim Curtis
and Akatsuki Takahashi, who are here from the
UNESCO offices in the region.
I would like to start by, of course, paying tributeto the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake
four years ago. I read in this morning’s newspaper
about the number of people still living in sort of
temporary housing to be 200,000. My thoughts goout to all of them.
I would like to start maybe by surprising you byasking if in the face of all these disasters and crisesthat we face every day, whether another meeting
was really necessary. We had many meetings in thepast and every time people come from all over theworld. My answer to this is that, in this particularcase, I think we have a special reason for being
here, not only because, of course, of this conference
that will take place next week in Sendai, which occurs every 10 years, but also because of the issues
that this conference is presenting to us, the challenges to our sector, to the heritage sector.
It is a challenge that is forcing us to reframe ourposition, our discourse, and our practices as professionals in the field of cultural heritage. We will betalking about this for the next three days, but in myview, there are two main points that are driving thisprocess. One is the realization that disaster risk reduction, climate change, and sustainable development are all three aspects of the same larger issue
and are all strictly connected. This is somethingthat is only now becoming apparent, and 2015 is a
critical year when in three different locations, in different parts of the world, these three aspects will be
discussed. First, here in Japan – disaster risk; then,of course, in New York at the General Assembly of
the UN – the issue of sustainable development in
September; and then in France, at the end of theyear – the Climate Change Conference. In reality,
they are all part of the same larger problem, theproblem of resilience.
The second sort of revelation is that culture, in− 17 −cluding heritage, is intrinsically relevant to resilience. It is at the nexus of all these three aspects
and a major component for the resilience of people.
And so the questions that I think this meeting will
be addressing are: what are the implications for us
in terms of policies, in terms of actions, and also
what indicators might we be able to find to measure
our contribution to resilience?
The deliberations of these three days will thenbe brought to Sendai, bringing our message to theconference. We will be speaking to a different audience, and so I think it’s a great opportunity that weare given by Japan, by the National Institutes for
Cultural Heritage, the Agency for Cultural Affairs
that have convened us, have supported this financially, and also done a great deal of coordination.
I would like to acknowledge also my colleague
Kumiko Shimotsuma for the wonderful work she
did in preparing this. Thanks also for the commitment of other partners such as ICOMOS, ICCROM
represented here by its Director-General Stefano
De Caro, Joseph King and others, ICOM and all of
you who have come from very far to take part in yet
another meeting, but hopefully one in which we’ll
be able to make a difference for once. Thank you somuch for your attention.

Opening Remarks by Giovanni Boccardi, Chief of Emergency Preparedness and Response, Culture Sector, UNESCO (Photo by Randolph Langenbach)Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Opening Remarks
Stefano De Caro
Director-General of ICCROM

I will associate to what Giovanni Boccardi has justtold about our long-lasting condolence for the Great
East Japan Earthquake. People suffered so muchand we will remember them.
On behalf of ICCROM, it gives me a great deal ofpleasure to personally welcome all of the participants to this very important initiative, the International Expert Meeting on Cultural Heritage andDisaster Resilient Communities, which is occurring
within the framework of the third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction.
For at least the past 30 years, ICCROM has
played an active role in promoting disaster risk
management, what we called risk preparedness atthat time, for the cultural heritage community. Publications such as Between Two Earthquakes by Bernard Feilden and Management Guidelines for Risk
Preparedness for Cultural Heritage by Herb Stovel,
were both early contributions to this important effort.
Especially over the past 10 years, ICCROM has
been very active in this field. During a visit by Professor Kenzo Toki to ICCROM, we discussed thepossible partnership between ACA, UNESCO andICCROM in a thematic session at the second World
Conference on Disaster Reduction. This session,
held in cooperation with Ritsumeikan University introduced the key concepts related both to the protection of cultural heritage in times of emergency
and also the use of cultural heritage as a positive
force in promoting a culture of prevention.
In the intervening 10 years, much progress has
been made. Working within the framework of theWorld Heritage Convention, a strategy for disasterrisk reduction was developed, as was a resource
manual on managing disaster risk for World Heritage. International meetings have been held on key
topics such as integrating traditional knowledge
systems into risk management strategies and an International Training Course on Disaster Risk Management of Cultural Heritage, a partnership between Ritsumeikan University, ICCROM, the
UNESCO World Heritage Centre and ICOMOSICORP is now in its 10th year.
At ICCROM, we continue to consider the issueof disaster risk to be a key area of our work as con-firmed by our most recent council meeting lastyear. We currently have a programming area entitled Developing and Promoting Disaster and Risk
Management, which integrates concepts for both
movable and immovable heritage. Here, I would
also like to call attention to the fact that we are considering not just the impacts of natural disasters,
but also those that are man-made. Our most recent
course on First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of
Crisis will begin at the end of this month in the
Netherlands. One only needs to open the pages of anewspaper today to understand why the protectionof heritage in conflict areas is becoming an important and integral part of the larger field of disasterrisk management. You will hear more about ICCROM programs and activities in this area tomorrow, during a presentation by my colleague Aparna
Tandon.
As with most activity areas, ICCROM’s strengthlies in the partnerships that it creates with likeminded people and organizations. Over the past 10
years, we have developed strong partnerships with
ACA, UNESCO and its World Heritage Centre,
ICOMOS-ICORP, Ritsumeikan University, theSmithsonian Institution, the Dutch National Commission for UNESCO and the Prince Claus Foundation, just to name a few.
In ICCROM’s view, we can achieve much more
by working together than we can ever achieve as anindividual organization acting alone. It is within thisspirit that I would like to express my greatest appreciation to our partner organizations who haveworked so hard on the development and implementation of this meeting, including ACA, UNESCO,NICH, ICOMOS-ICORP, and UNISDR. With its inclusion in the third World Conference on Disaster
Risk Reduction, we can say that cultural heritage is
now seen as one of the key factors in disaster risk
management. We have come a long way in the past
10 years, but we have a long way to go. It is my hopethat this meeting will serve as an important milestone in our journey towards protecting and utilizing cultural heritage as a key resource for building
resilient communities. Thank you so much.

− 18 −

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Introduction to the International Expert Meeting
Joseph King
Site Unit Director
ICCROM

It is my pleasure to take a few minutes to introduce
to you the schedule and format of the International
Expert Meeting in which we will all be participatingover the next few days.
This expert meeting is held within the framework of the third World Conference on Disaster
Risk Reduction (WCDRR), which will start on
March 14th in Sendai, Japan. It also follows on a successful thematic session called Cultural Heritage
Risk Management, which took place ten years ago
in Kobe, Japan at the second World Conference on
Disaster Reduction.
In regard to this meeting, we’ve been in the process of planning over the past year. Giovanni Boccardi prepared the draft concept note, and we’vebeen developing our ideas based on the conceptionof Giovanni. Particularly, since September 2014,
we’ve begun putting together the program and organizing everything. I’m happy to say that we havemanaged to bring all of you here for this meeting
today.
In organizing the meeting, we felt that it was important to link our work to the actual program of the
WCDRR. We didn’t want this session to be something that was an outlier or to be something thatwasn’t an integrated part of the activities that weregoing to take place in Sendai later in the week.
With that in mind, we based our structure on thezero-draft of the “post-2015 Framework for Disaster
Risk Reduction.” This post-2015 framework will be
the outcome document of the 3rd WCDRR. Within
the zero-draft, four “priorities for action” were identified.
The first priority for action is “Understanding
disaster risk,” the second is “Strengthening governance to manage disaster risk,” the third is “Investing in social, economic and environmental resilience,” and the fourth is “Enhancing preparednessfor effective response and building back better inrecovery and reconstruction.”
We decided to organize this expert meetingalong the lines of these four priority areas. It is important that the results of this expert meetingshould feed into the Working Session on “Resilient− 19 −

Cultural Heritage” that we have later in the week
within the 3rd WCDRR. In line with this thinking,we divided the four priority areas into six sessionsof this expert meeting in order to capture the richness of the subject.
The Session 1 is an introduction, which is not apart of the priority areas. It is essentially a statement of why culture and cultural heritage matterswithin disaster risk reduction. This topic includes abasic introduction to the key concepts that we will
be talking about over the course of the three days.
After this introduction, we begin to cover the fourpriority areas.
The Session 2, under the priority area of “Understanding disaster risk,” looks at the role of cultural
heritage in understanding disaster risk.
The Session 3 is on strengthening governance ininstitutions, specifically related to cultural heritage
for managing disaster risk.
The next priority area is on response, recovery
and reconstruction, we have divided that into two
sections. One is dealing with technical issues andanother is dealing with cultural heritage and resilient communities.
Finally, the Session 6 is on investing in disasterrisk reduction for sustainable development.
To structure our work over the next three days,
each of these sessions will have two facilitators.
One will be the moderator and one will act as a rapporteur, gathering up the key points and the possible recommendations that may be coming out of
the session.
In order to capture the ideas that come out ofvarious sessions, we have planned that, on each of
the first two days, the last one hour after the session
3 or 6 would be used for group discussions to develop conclusions and recommendations. We would
like to have three groups each day. Today, there will
be a group discussion by three groups, one for Session 1, one for Session 2, and one for Session 3. Tomorrow, Sessions 4, 5 and 6 will be dealt with in thesame way.
We are asking that the groups be composed of
the speakers of that session, the facilitators of that

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

session, and then other interested people in theroom who may want to be a part of that discussion.
Those people who will make a presentation tomorrow, may participate in any of the three groups today, whichever they have a particular interest in.
Each group will get together for the last hour of the
day to come out with a series of conclusions andrecommendations that we can put into a final document.
The final session on Friday morning will be topresent the consolidated conclusions and recommendations. That session will be conducted by Giovanni Boccardi and myself.
We consider that the conclusions and recommendations should be concrete and action-oriented,
as much as possible. We are not looking for philosophical statements, but we really want to knowwhat we can do over the next ten years to improve
the situation for cultural heritage and disaster risk.
There will be also a number of other events related to these particular meetings which will be announced by our Japanese hosts. These events will
include several public symposia, site visits, optional
tours, and of course, there is the working session at
the third WCDRR.
Finally, I want to announce that we are expecting to produce a conference report from this activity, so we will ask speakers for their permission to
use their slides, written papers, and photographs, if
available. We will get back to you with details onthat later, but I want everyone to be aware of thefact that we will eventually compile a report of thisexpert meeting.
I hope that I have been able to give you a summary of what will be happening over the next few
days. To conclude, I want to say that I look forward
to working with all of you, whether you are old or
new friends. I look forward to hearing the presentations over the next two days and listening to a richdiscussion. Thank you.

Fig.1: Opening Remarks by Stefano De Caro, Director-General,
ICCROM (Photo by NICH)

Fig.2: Introduction by Joseph King, Site Unit Director, ICCROM(Photo by Randolph Langenbach)Fig.3: at Osaki-Hachimangu Shrine in Sendai(Photo by Kumiko Shimotsuma)− 20 −

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Keynote Presentation (1)Understanding Culture and Risk: People’s Culture, Organizational Culture
and the Protection of Heritage

Terry Cannon

Senior Research Fellow,
Institute of Development Studies,
University of Sussex, UK
Note : Terry Cannon is the lead editor and one of the authors of the“2014 World Disaster Report – Focus on culture and risk”
that was published by IFRC. All the figures and photos in thispaper are from the Chapter 3 of the above-mentioned report.

1. Introduction
I want to talk to you today about the big questions
asked earlier by Giovanni Boccardi from UNESCO
of why we are here, and what the need for anothermeeting is. I would like to make some challenges aswell as present some aspects of the “World Disasters Report 2014 – Focus on culture and risk” [Fig.
1]. These challenges would involve us thinking
about some buzzwords, including “resilience,” “sustainability,” “governance” and “community” andwhether we use them properly.
A chief buzzword used today is “resilience.” Youcannot discuss disasters without this word coming
up. I would challenge us all to consider an actual

Fig.1: Cover of the 2014 World Disasters Report – Focus on culture
and risk− 21 −

definition of resilience and what we mean by it.
Other key issues are why we need resilience, what
has happened to make us use the word resilience
now, and why people are not talking about vulnerability or the causes of vulnerability that necessitate
resilience.
Other buzzwords that we use very easily are“sustainable” or “sustainability,” and “governance.”
The last one, which is actually in the title of this conference, is “community.” A part of the research that
we did for the 2014 World Disaster Report is critical
for the concept of community, which is often usedwithout sufficient thinking.
You should all have a copy in front of you of the2014 World Disasters Report, which I am very
pleased to bring for you. The video that I showed at
the beginning of this presentation is available at thelink of http://www.ifrc.org/world-disasters-report2014 or on YouTube.
2. Culture of People and Culture of Organizations
In the 2014 World Disasters Report, we analyzed two
forms of culture: popular and organizational. For
the former, it is important to stress that we were notsimply interested in so-called people’s culture
which tends to focus on the unusual things that people around the world believe about risks and disasters. For the latter, we wanted to look at the unfamiliar beliefs that organizations have; the rationality
and irrationality of organizations. Maybe we ourselves need some self-reflection amongst our own
organizations about the way we behave irrationallyin relation to various aspects of our work. We arethus looking at these two aspects of culture: that ofpeople facing risks from extreme hazards, and thatof institutions (or organizational culture).
Much of the 2014 World Disasters Report is informed by an assessment of disasters. What may beless known to you is how much disasters are socially constructed. Many organizations now accept thefact that there is no such thing as a ‘natural disaster.’ Disasters are all socially constructed throughTokyo Strategy Meetingthe effects of political, economic, and cultural factors and processes. These influences result in a situation in which people are living under dangerous
conditions at dangerous places. Many of these ideas were outlined in the book entitled At Risk: Natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters. The
first three chapters of this are available free at the
UNISDR link of http://www.preventionweb.net/
files/670_72351.pdf. I’m also proud to say that thisbook was translated into Japanese by Professor
Masayuki Watanabe (http://www.tsukiji-shokan.
co.jp/mokuroku/chosya/ben-wisner.html).
Let us look at what we mean by culture. Of
course, there are many definitions of it. In the World
Disasters Report we used a functional definition, in
which we focused on what aspects of culture might
be of significance with regard to people’s behavior
in relation to risk. Through this functional definition, the first point we emphasized is that people
have beliefs that are acquired through processes
including particularly upbringing, family education
or religious institutions, and lead to values. It is values that determine people’s priorities in the potential threats that might affect them in their lives, thethings that they care about, or their worldviews.
These worldviews often include and justify powersystems under which people have to live. I will discuss this point later.
The values are then translated into attitudes towards risk. These attitudes then lead to behaviors.
What is or is not done in relation to risk? What isinvested in terms of time, effort, or money? And

who invests in it? In other words, the behavior ishow culture is operationalized in relation to manydifferent kinds of risk that people face.
3. Disasters, Risks and Vulnerability
Now, I would like to return to the World Disasters
Report. In it, we developed a very simple model toexplain that disasters do not occur naturally. Then,
how do we understand the causation of disasters?
We all know that disasters are related to hazards.
But the hazards will lead to disasters if they hit vulnerable people.
A classic example is a hurricane that travelledacross the Caribbean to hit three different countries, Cuba, Haiti, and Florida in the USA. In Cuba,
nobody died because of an effective warning andevacuation system. In Haiti, many people were
killed. Then, in Florida, nobody died but billions ofdollars’ worth of damage was caused. One hazard
brought three different types of effects: no disaster,loss of life, and heavy financial losses. The different
social conditions produce different effects.
This is why we need to understand the vulnerability components that cause disasters. The vulnerability components are largely determined by structures of power. These power relationships arenormally allocated to categories of class, gender,
ethnicity, caste and also culture. These determine
who is or is not vulnerable to a hazard. They arevery important factors in determining how risk approaches people.

Fig.2: Risk hierarchy (2014 World Disaster Report, p.68)− 22 −

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Fig.3: Two ways to see the landscape: risk or opportunity (2014 World Disaster Report, p.69)− 23 −

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

4. Risk Hierarchy
Another part of the approach we took was to understand how people behaved and received risks. This
is what I call the risk hierarchy [Fig. 2]. Risks at the
top are very rare but very intense and extreme
events. Risks at the bottom are more common andless extreme events. In it, we have the risk reaction.
People feel that they cannot do very much for thevery extreme ones; the bottom events are very often common and coped with. Some of you may haveheard of the idea: people live with floods in Bangladesh, it is a part of their livelihood and they require
those floods (so long as they are not too severe) inorder to survive.
But what most people worry about is not extreme hazards but the problems of everyday life,
especially poverty, illness, putting food on the plateor payment of school fees. In developing countries,
these are what give people their real concerns. Thishas been borne out by thousands of investigations
all over the world that have confirmed that people
are not concerned about extreme risks. We, with
our interest in DRR need to be concerned about theeffect of that on us, if we are trying to deal withrisks with which people are not concerned. That issomething that we need to build into our discussions: How can we get people to support protectionof cultural heritage when in their own lives they are
not giving severe hazards a high priority?
To illustrate this, here is exactly the same landscape perceived in two completely different ways
[Fig. 3]. People see their landscape as providing opportunities for their livelihoods, not as risks. For
instance, the coast is a place for opportunities, thevolcanoes provide fertile soil, the river land is flatand good for farming, and the rivers provide fertility when they flood. On the other hand, disaster risk
managers have a completely different perception –in the second version of the landscape all that is noticed is danger – the hazard risks. Organizations
have their own priorities that ignore what the people are concerned about. I argue that the organizations are therefore irrational because they are ignoring the people’s priorities and imposing theirown rationality on the situation from their viewpoints of disaster risk reduction.
A lot of what the people want in their own priorities is what we would call development. It comesunder what you might call sustainable development
goals or the Millennium Development Goals. Thisis a part of the problem that we have in this division
between the different organizations in not doingthese things in a conjoined way. A logical consequence is that DRR cannot be achieved unless people’s development needs are solved first or in conjunction with DRR interventions.
5. Why culture?
I should explain that the 2014 World Disasters Report is independent but published by International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). I’d like to thank two of the people inthis room, Giovanni Boccardi and Randolph Langenbach, who are contributors to this book.
Culture is complex. There is no single definition,
but it must not be ignored because DRR is embedded in all aspects of life, including how people define risks. It is actually extraordinary how culture is
ignored by almost all disaster risk reduction organizations. This room probably contains more people
who are concerned about culture in relation to disasters than there will be in Sendai next week. Thatis quite a telling thing to say that most DRR organizations do not take into account culture in what they
are doing because they are not interested in how
other people think, but only in what the organization thinks. It is a classic case of insider - outsider
relationships, with a huge gap between the different types of goals.
Why culture? Because beliefs lead people to perceive risk in particular ways, and because risk is always perceived and even produced through thelens of culture. It is embedded in people’s everyday
behavior and affects their way of dealing with theirdifferent risks. And culture is vitally important as it
can both increase and reduce vulnerability. We are
not criticizing people’s beliefs, even though many ofthem make DRR difficult. But what we have to do isactually to work with people in their beliefs rather
than to say they are irrational.
DRR projects fail when they ignore how people
really relate to risks. For this reason, we need a new
approach as to how organizations behave and perceive risk, and how they act themselves. That is avitally important part of the process.
This extraordinary photo in La Paz, Bolivia, illustrates some of these points [Fig. 4]. This was
taken by Dr. Fabien Nathan. He went there to do his
Ph.D. on disaster risk and discovered people living
like this. They are not the poorest of the Bolivians– significant investment has gone into the houses.
Although they are clearly in a dangerous situation,
the people have managed to come up with stories toclaim that it is a good and safe place to live. It is− 24 −

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Fig.4: La Paz: residents interviewed by Fabien Nathan (2014 World Disaster Report, p.70)

these types of stories, multiplied by the millions
around the world, that we need to understand.
However, DRR organizations must acknowledge
that their perception of risk is usually very different
from that of the people. The normal institutional
DRR response to people living like this is to say“you must move out of there,” which is not what
people want to do. We have to deal with this clash of
cultures between organizations and people. So, we
are arguing that organizations need to analyze theirown behavior in relation to these particular clashes,
because we are asking people to be different fromwhat they are and to do what we want in our risks.
6. Culture, Risk and Community
To conclude I want to talk a bit about culture, risk
and communities. A key chapter in the 2014 World
Disaster Report actually challenges the concept ofcommunity and suggests that it is largely a myth.
Because what is often called a community includes− 25 −

complex power relationships that affect risk, exposure and vulnerability. A simple example from a village in Nepal is mentioned in the Report, where
only the people from a particular caste were allowed
to be present at a vulnerability assessment meeting,and the others were not. This would be very common in many places around the world.
If we look at a supposed community where DRR
activities are proposed, it will have a boundary,within which the project funding is spent. Let us
view it in different ways, because in fact this socalled community is full of divisions. The first division relates to class. In many countries, unequal
rural social classes exist mainly determined by unequal land ownership. A small number of families
owns a lot of land, a huge number of households atthe bottom has no land at all. For example, 30-60 %of the households in South Asia are landless. How
can they engage in DRR when they have very little
control over their own existence as defined by theTokyo Strategy Meeting

dominant land tenure system?
The second division is “gender.” Every single
community in the world is divided in half on gendergrounds. Women tend to get less food, healthcare
or education, and have fewer rights. In some partsof the world, there is an imbalance in the numbers
because of the selective abortion of female fetuses
and even female infanticide. In some parts of India
and China, the ratio of male to female is as high as
115, even 120. The ability of women to deal with risk
is often severely constrained, and yet they are supposedly part of the community. These and other divisions within so-called communities are leading tomany people being more vulnerable: yet the causesof that vulnerability are often a result of exploitationand oppression that is going on within the community.
What these represent is that there are fundamental divisions in every single so-called community in which we work. What I want to emphasize
here is that we are actually imposing our concept on
people when we use the term of “community“, andthat our concept is not always relevant. Furthermore, we are imposing that concept in order tomake us feel comfortable so that we can do ourwork effectively at the grassroots level. This is because we want to have that value given to us that weare concerned about poor people. What proportionof the poverty and the vulnerability that DRR organizations are concerned about is actually beingcaused by processes that are going on within thecommunity? These are the questions that we needto think without using the buzzword, and instead
analyzing.

7. Links with DRR
In the 2014 World Disaster Report, we also lookedon the positive side, which Randolph Langenbach
will talk about later, at the way local building culture
can be used and mobilized for protection of buildings in preparation for disasters, and about the needfor reinforcement of traditional and cultural formsof building and structures.
But, what we have to be really concerned about
is the way that power operates, and that power will
operate in the Sendai meeting next week. I do notthink we can get away from the fact. In the forthcoming meeting at Sendai, there will be a discussion about whether climate change can be includedin the post Hyogo Framework for Action. Some governments are insisting that climate change cannot
be included into DRR, which is a blatant example ofirrationality resulting from beliefs of organizations
that do not want to confront the truth. Climatechange must be integrated with DRR and development. Otherwise we are going to be pulling in threedifferent directions which would produce a problem.
People tell themselves stories of disaster risks
that are not going to happen to them. Not only thepeople in La Paz but also the British government,
the US Republicans, climate change deniers and big
oil companies are all telling themselves stories thatthey are perfectly safe. Unless they do something
next week in Sendai, we know that they are going toslide down the hill into hell. Thank you.

− 26 −

(Session1)

Keynote Presentation (2)Cultural Heritage, Social Cohesion and Sustainable Development
Yasmeen LariChair,
Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

My presentation will be limited to understanding or
to underscoring the urgent need for achieving
large-scale disaster preparedness and resilienceamong flood-prone communities by nurturing
women as agents of change and executing holistic,
integrated models that are drawn from local cultural heritage and traditions. The focus will be on inexpensive alternatives for village level strategies tobring about societal transformation in marginalized
post-disaster communities.
The attempt is to illustrate that if DRR-compliant
options are drawn from local and vernacular traditions and are low cost, and if an effort is made tobuild technical competence, communities canthemselves acquire coping mechanisms to withstand disasters. And of course, within community, I
give emphasis on women.
It will be seen that the use of local materials
helps provide alternative livelihood opportunities
as well as local economic regeneration, thus helping to tackle core poverty issues and creating resilient communities. Now, this is something that isvery much applicable to countries like mine (Pakistan), and I will be talking more about this.
When I think about Terry Cannon’s presentation, I couldn’t agree more with the viewpoint that
he has presented about culture. And I think it isvery important to look at the different aspects that
actually are held dear by communities, and to consider how we can best maximize on those.
So it would be misleading to assume that poor
people do not have cultural roots or are ignorant
about their traditions. As you know cultural legacy
is transmitted through materials, objects, and written or oral traditions. Those who are poor in material possessions are usually rich in intangible resources, ancient knowledge, and age-old
procedures.
Why should we ignore the cultural attributes ofcommunities whose roots go back thousands ofyears? Why should there not be a conscious effort
to draw upon vernacular heritage instead of imposing alien and urbanized solutions? Why should we
not carry out research and build a reservoir of in− 27 −formation that can then be used to devise alternatives which will resonate with community’s own
traditions and will be thus accepted and practiced
more readily? It is clear in the work so far carriedout by my organization that fostering pride andstake through participative approaches must be thecornerstone of post-disaster development and evenemergency work.
This also shows that even the poorest nations
must protect their cultural heritage. And for them tobe relevant in developing DRR or DRM approaches,
community engagement for heritage stewardshipneeds to be ensured. That is why I’m very heartened to hear the speakers from ICCROM and
UNESCO, who are now talking of emergency action to be taken up everywhere. I know that a lot oforganizations have been working on it, but I think
the problem now is far aggravated because of climate change. And I think we all have to work together to make sure that we try to protect whateveris there.
I would like to show some examples. First one is
our Bronze Age, Mohenjo-daro, the World Heritagesite where we can learn a lesson about building on
platforms. This must be done in all flood prone areas in Pakistan, at least. Then, second is about traditional heritage or the vernacular heritage that wehave, and that exhibits sustainability of materials;
the way mud is used, and the way thatch is used.
The third is the dhajji dewari that Dr. Langenbach
will be talking about, which bespeaks how you can
use traditional ways of building and how these canstill be used today. We have innovated a little bit. We
don’t use wood anymore, we only use bamboo. And
the last one is, of course, women’s crafts, which
resonate with everybody. So these are the things
that we have to be looking at.
Increased dependency on aid, loss of respect and
pride: these are brought to us by aid-giving agencies, constantly given a lot of aid, and a lot of aid
obviously misused. Vulnerability has been increased due to successive disasters, climate change
impact, and recurring annual disasters. And you
can see that in the 2005 earthquake, which is very

Tokyo Strategy Meetingwell-known. I have to say, the kind of help we got
from all over the world was just amazing. So muchmoney came in, but still, there were 400,000 families that had been displaced. Since 2010, 2011, 2012,2013, and 2014, every year we’ve had floods, andover 2 million families have been affected. Similarly,
in 2013, we had the earthquake in Awaran with
50,000 people being affected.
However, I do not show the dismal picture to solicit more aid or grants. The mechanism of distribution has, to my mind, been detrimental to the selfrespect and dignity of the people and has spawned aculture of dependency and ready acceptance ofhandouts. Rather, I present these figures to informyou that the displacement of families is far greaterthan what governments and aid givers can everhope to cope with through handouts.
Past experience of earthquakes tells us this: theearthquake in 2005 amply demonstrated the infutility of pouring millions of dollars into building unsustainable urbanized houses leaving insufficient
funds left over for social infrastructure. Today, just
10 years after the earthquake, only 50% of schools
and only a small percentage of health facilities wereable to be rebuilt. Unless we are willing to learn
from the ineffectiveness of unsustainable approaches, we will continue to deprive our communities
from reaching the targets that were envisaged in
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The
MDGs have not been met, obviously, when our approaches are so totally off track.
Next, the points I present are the approaches
adopted by most aid givers in Pakistan. As a result,in spite of the injection of enormous funds, communities are, by and large, left helpless and dependent.
Please forgive me if I sound a little harsh, because
while being grateful as a nation for the generous assistance that Pakistan has received from the UN
agencies, INGOs, and donor governments, I believe there is an urgent need to revisit humanitarian
aid procedures, since distribution of charity has resulted in making affected populations into supplicants and beggars, shorn of initiatives and selfworth.
What I see in the proposals I read are the implementation processes that we see in countries like
Pakistan. I believe there’s a lack of sensitivity andknowledge of each country’s cultural heritage. Veryfew organizations actually look into that. We findimposition of inappropriate urbanized solutions inrural areas with minimal contributions from local
technical expertise. Everything is flown in fromoutside and is implemented without seeing whether
it’s relevant to the area that it’s being built in. Thereis lack of emphasis on research and development
for devising sustainable solutions, utilization ofhigh carbon footprints, or high cost models.
Somehow, as I think Terry said in his presentation, it is that all the time we are looking at what wewant from people, rather than what people reallywant for themselves. There is a lack of environmental impact studies when building thousands of units.
I don’t believe, to my knowledge, there is any study
that’s carried out when 25,000 poplars are hacked
in Swat to build 1,000 emergency units, or on burnt
brick structures, or on the use of steel girders or
the use of cement concrete.
There is an absence of involvement of local women. I address the issue of how there are hardly any
women—perhaps a larger percentage of woman incountries like ours—involved in any of the processes. Of course, lip service is paid. People do talkabout women having to be brought into it, but hardly any women are actually made to work or be involved in the process.
I also have to say that when a disaster occurs, it’sreally the women and children that are the worst
sufferers, and somehow that understanding is also
not there. This is the reason why women have to bebrought into the whole scenario; they have to bebrought into doing everything that has to be done
as far as DRR is concerned.
Then there is the lack of providing training fortechnical competence of communities. The solutions that are brought in are difficult because they
are urbanized, and many times they do not relate topeople’s lives, and so hardly anybody learns. So, it
is really people being brought from outside whocome and construct.
Then, there is not much emphasis on disaster
preparedness. We talk about it, but actually thesethings are not happening. There is a lack of integrated approaches and an absence of coordination
between different organizations pursuing different
goals. So, for example, shelter, WASH, literacy, foodsecurity, water harvesting, or whatever—these arebeing done by different organizations, and nobody
is trying to take an integrated approach.
So, the interventions pursued by well-meaning
aid providers have so far failed to lift majority of thepeople out of the morass of apathy, and so they continue to remain highly vulnerable. Without a coordinated and integrated approach and with a lack ofopportunities, and strategies, the sequel is likely to− 28 −

(Session1)

remain unsatisfactory. Please, I do not want you to
get the impression that I’m criticizing anybody. I
think this is the way the policies have been drafted,
this is the way the system works, and every organization is obviously following that. But this may be
the time to think about how we can bring about
more integration.
If one agency such as, say UN-Habitat, pursues
shelter in certain villages, the other pursuing
WASH, such as UNICEF, is likely not to have a presence in the same village, nor FAO to provide foodsecurity. And all these organizations have enormous work in Pakistan. So this is not, as I keep on
saying, is not to criticize them, but this is the way
the models have been presented, this is the way
they operate in our country. This approach results
in a highly fragmented and disjointed outcome. The
funds invested are largely wasted or at least notable to attain the required resilience—that elusive
factor that all of us are aiming to achieve.
I suspect this may be the result of the muchhyped UN cluster system, which, as I’m sure all ofyou must be aware, was devised during Pakistan
earthquake 2005. It might have been beneficial
once, but it has now sequestered each activity into
seemingly watertight compartments with no overlap or attempt to developing an integrated approach.
Due to the lack of studies or environmental impact
assessments, we are inflicting greater damage due
to reconstruction in place of vernacular sustainable
construction that were there prior to the disaster.
The urbanized 400,000 housing units using concrete and steel, built in the aftermath of Pakistan
earthquake 2005, have been hugely detrimental tothe environment, contributing greatly to the increase in carbon emissions. I suspect that the WorldBank and Asian Development Bank had anotherobjective, and that was to build industrial complexes of cement and steel in Pakistan, forgetting about
what the people really wanted.
So what was needed was to provide technical improvements to vernacular construction methods,
and I believe Dr. Langenbach will be talking about it
later in his paper about dhajji dewari, which is in
Kashmir, northern Pakistan.
Now, this slide is really to show you some of themodels that are being imposed on rural areas: they
are highly urbanized, and as you can see, the use ofburnt brick, the use of steel girders, reinforced concrete frame, and again brick infill and precast panels—these have nothing to do with the rural areasof Pakistan, but they are imposed all the time in all− 29 −

parts of the country. Whether it’s the mountainous
area or whether it’s the plains, this is what is being
taken up everywhere.
There is a study by Magnus Wolfe Murray,whom I hold in the highest regard. He is a DFID
advisor or was until sometime ago, and he calculated that if 100,000 units were built of burnt bricks,
then there would be a carbon emission of 316,470
tons because of the kilns’ use of wood in firing thebricks and deforestation to the tune of 50,770 acresfor 10 years. This does not take into account the energy that is being used for creating, fabricating, ormaking cement and steel.
So, you can see the huge amount of damage that
this kind of construction is causing in countries likeours or anywhere in the world. In our studies, wehave seen that the unfamiliarity of rural artisanswith utilization of burnt brick, concrete, and steel
joints results in poor construction, leading to collapse of many structures that were built in response
to 2010 floods, by INGOs and by the UN system itself. Heavy material such as reinforced concretebeams or steel girders, when poorly built, havebeen seen to inflict greater harm when they collapse during a disaster compared to those built
from mud and bamboo, which are fairly light.
Next, I would like to show what we are trying todo(Fig.1). You can see the isometric of a small unit,
a one-room shelter using mud in the walls, bamboo
for the roof, and again a layer of mud on the top.
Another example shows the HF-IOM model where
Heritage Foundation of Pakistan is the technical advisory partner, and IOM has gone and built these. It
is clear that if the impact of climate change is to be
mitigated, we need to reduce carbon emissions during emergency assistance as well as during postdisaster reconstruction. This requires innovative,
out-of-the-box solutions so that the emphasis is on
self-building, self-motivation, pride, and self-worth.
Without these ingredients, the core poverty issues
will not be addressed and resilience will remain elusive.
The Build Back Safer with Vernacular Methodologies program devised by us after the 2010 floods
in Pakistan has resulted in the largest zero carbon—or low carbon footprint shelter program in
the world, due to a collaborative arrangement with
IOM, as I said, and the funding had mostly comefrom DFID, for this purpose. The specially designed
units rely on the use of lime as a stabilizer for mud,which also provides weather resistance resulting in
its popularity among the communities and nick-Tokyo Strategy Meeting

named KatchaKot, which means “unfired clay fortress.” They were very hesitant to use it in the beginning, but when the rains came—and the rainscame every year—they found that the houses were
solid, and they did not disintegrate, and so they are
known as unfired clay fortress.
The use of lime is directly drawn from traditional
construction techniques. For instance, we find it in
the Buddhist stupas of early 8th century and inmany later period structures built by the Mughals
and later by the British in the subcontinent of Pakistan and India. So you can see that the cost is only
$300, which actually IOM provides. When we getinvolved in the communities, it’s only $100. Compare this with the other models that I showed you
earlier, which cost between $1000 to $1600 per unit.
So, this is the kind of economic trade-off, if you like,that we could also have if we were to use sustainable materials.
These next images show how immediately after
the completion of a unit, the sense of ownership is
manifested. Since the techniques and materials re-

sound with their own aspirations, it is a woman whobrings about her own artistic and creative sensibilities. Each one of the units is personalized and becomes a showcase for the resident’s pride. This unit
is the first unit built, where 15 people climbed on
the roof and they felt that, yes, it was safe enough.
This was how we proved that it could be done. It’s
incredible how women translate their own creative
abilities from their crafts into the folk painting thatthey do on their own houses, making them from ashelter into a home. So this is something that is important for us to allow the communities to be able todo.
So using the basic material of mud, which they
are familiar with, strengthened through technicalinterventions, the lime-stabilized mud walls carrystrong bamboo joints. When fully treated, they are
expected to last at least for a quarter-century. Theseroofs are accessible and provide refuge to families
during floods. The same materials have been usedsuccessfully in seismic-prone areas after the Awaran
earthquake in 2013 through the use of bamboo lat-Fig.1: Zero carbon footprint flood resistant units− 30 −

(Session1)

tice in corners and in walls. So this is somethingthat we can do and we are pursuing religiously—
just primarily the use of mud, bamboo and lime,
which are all sustainable materials.
Next, since all structures built must contributeto flood preparedness—and there was a mention
made of places like Bangladesh, where the people
live with floods—there is no reason why these can’t
be designed to be strong, as the example shows,particularly where these are in floodplains. Every
year these communities are confronted with floods,
but for the last 4 years, they’ve survived pretty well.
So what we propose is that all community buildings should be designed and built to provide refuge
to vulnerable groups and family groups. The safetyof these is of extreme importance: schools, women’s centers, and health clinics are all designed toprovide safety during floods. These are all sustainable buildings using unfired clay or local stone,
lime, and bamboo. What you see in the slide on the
top is derived from the dhajji dewari construction
method, which normally uses wood. Here we havetranslated that into the use of bamboo, so it has become much more sustainable.
Another thing that I feel very strongly about isthat DRR themes have to be brought into the mainstream. Right now, they are hidden away into thearea of floods or somewhere else, and really thegeneral public has no idea that everybody must
now prepare for disasters. And so we have a theme
park. The examples show the theme park, and an
eco-village built by the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, which presents the essential elements for disaster preparedness at the community level. A variety of green skills are imparted here, but most of all
the settings provide a holistic model ranging fromshelter, to WASH, and hygiene as well as technicaltraining for alternative income generation. The
presentation areas allow for large gatherings in order to mainstream the significance of disaster preparedness.
The venues are now utilized with great enthusiasm, particularly by women and children. It is those
women who are stepping out of their own houses,
which is usually unheard of. The fame of this education has spread, and large groups are brought to thetraining venues for making green products, which
foster really the coping mechanisms as well. At thesame time, trainers are taught about marketing—enabling villagers and participatory self-building
techniques. I have to say that I’m also surprised myself of the great success that we’ve encountered,− 31 −

Because everybody, even the villagers, who haveseen such structures before, since they are all
drawn from what they have had, are still surprised
and delighted to see that this could be done.
This is a matrix, showing how you can transform
lives(Fig.2). With $30,000, can you build a village of
100 households? This is the proposal that we’vedone, and we’ve actually put it into practice because,just recently when last year we had this Emirates’
Greener Tomorrow Award, one village was transformed in 6 months. I will not go through the wholething now, but very quickly, I might just tell you thata lot of these are zero-cost solutions. The DRR center is where all the training takes place. In the villages where we operate, this costs about $5000. The
shelters are only $100 which people themselves canbuild and do a lot of things, aside from the materials
that we provide. There are the eco-toilets, whichcost about $60. There is a raised water pump costing $80, there is smokeless stove, which costs zero
because it can be done by people themselves. There
are platforms to place your water and your othergoods onto, so that you are safe from floods.
I have to say that people who suffer the floods
are equally concerned about them as they are about
earthquakes. I have to tell you that when womenand children are in water, they don’t really like it.
They want to do something about it, and we have totrain them so that they will not be in water again.
We can do it. There are lots of things which are ofzero carbon footprint and zero cost, and there areothers which cost a little bit more. In this, I havealso added how we can start up schools that mightotherwise be defunct. Core poverty issues relate to
deficits of all kinds, especially health and especiallyeducation. There is a huge amount of illiteracy, andwe have got to tackle that if we want to say that wewant to make resilient communities.
There is also farming on the roof, which is again,
zero cost. There are animal enclosures that are
separated. They make compost out of the dung andwhatever of the animals, and they sell, and they are
all making money. This is something that is happening and that can be done, but it requires a hugeamount of effort into the training of people, which is
not really being done at this time at all—or very little. So, I think that building up the capacity of people themselves is the key to building stronger communities.
Lasty, I would like to show you how women actually can be trained—that they are the ones who canactually bring about a transformation(Fig.3). They

Tokyo Strategy Meetingcess of over 2000 fuel-efficient smokeless stoves—
earthen stoves. She now earns over $500 per monthcompared to the earlier $30 per month. She charges
a fee of $2 from each housewife, and she trainsthem how to make stoves, and the women do itthemselves.
Rural master trainers conducting training sessions with the use of drawings, images, and tablets
to impart technically sound techniques was once
thought to be unheard of. Non-literate village women have learned to do layouts, provide lime concrete in the base, slake lime, make mud bricks, andcarry out construction of various elements.
This is all possible with women, and they are themost neglected part of all our country. We reallyhave to bring them up, because there is a hunger inthem to learn and to get on and do things, because
there is a whole one year between floods, when all
the village people can actually get together and develop preparedness. What we have to do is to get
down to them, to catch them at that time, to train
them, and to let them build so that nobody else has

are the ones who are working on the landlords’
land, because they have no land of their own. Mostof the people are haris, which means that they arelandless, but because we work in mud—so nobody
is threatened—the amazing thing is that no landlord has ever stopped us from building houses forthe people.
And this is what is happening today, and you can
see the women. They are non-literate and neglected, but they require uplifting and they can do hugeamount of work. So, the system of training BarefootVillage Entrepreneurs, BVE, provides the womenthe skills that they use for alternative income as
they provide guidance to others for making sustainable green products.
The creation of BVEs is helping to rapidly spread
technical competence among rural women. It isalso political in some ways because these womenare becoming very smart, and very bright, and very
outspoken now. The most recent example is that ofa village woman, Champa, who has successfully targeted a dozen neighboring villages to guide the pro-㼀㻾㻭㻺㻿㻲㻻㻾㻹㻵㻺㻳㻌㻸㻵㼂㻱 㻿
Attaining Lari’s 1st Level of Resilience㻭㻯㼀㻵㼂㻵㼀㼅
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㻺㻻㻚
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Women-Centred DRR Centres
Low-cost,SustainableGreenConstruction

5,000

Safe Shelter: 100 @ Rs. 10,000 each
• Walls by HH• Guidance&fooffixingbyVBEonfeepaymentbyHH• Gift of roof by HF
KaravanLatrine: 50 @ Rs. 6,000 each
• Eco-ToiletWallsbyHH;guidance&fixingbyVBE• Gift of roof & sanitaryware by HF• HhearnsRs.650/monththroughsaleofnightsoil
Water Pump: 40 @ Rs. 8,000 each
• RaisedEarthenPlatformandplantationbedbyHH• 50%cost and guidance fee toVBEby HH• 50% contribution by HF

12,000

3,000

3,200

Karavan Pakoswiss Chulah: 90
ConstructionbyHHbypayingguidancefeetoVBE
KaravanTibba: 90• Lime-mudelevatedplatformsforstorageofgrain,water and solar water• ConstructionbyHHbypayingguidancefeetoVBE
Karavan ChhatBagheecha: 50㻌㻌• RoofGardenconstructionbyHHbypayingguidance
fee to VBE

Eco Toilet US$ 60/unit

Raised water pump US$ 80

Smokeless stove US$ 00

Platforms US$ 00

Roof garden US $ 00

Animal Enclosure US$ 100

Health Centre US$ 4,00000

00

Animal Enclosures: 11
Pozzolanaflooringanddrainforurinecollection㻥• ConstructionbyHHbypayingguidancefeetoVBE• Gift of miscellaneous materials by HF
Plantation of Neem Trees: 36• PlantationbyHHbypayingguidancefeetoVBE㻝㻝• GiftofneemtreesbyHFforanimalenclosuresandcourtyards; other trees by VBE at cost

1,100

100

Organic Fertilizer & Herbal Soap㻝㻞 • Lowcostorganicproductsforhygieneandlivelihood• HouseholdpaysfeetoVBEforgettingtraining

00

Literacy: 100% children in school• Making government schoolsfunctional• Makingupdeficits/GiftofHF’sParhoPakistan(Read
Pakistan) pre school centres
Village Healthcare•P㻌 rimaryhealthcarethroughvillageparamedic㻝㻠• GiftofbuildingandfirststockofmedicinesbyHF

1,600

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4,000

$
30,000TOTAL REQUIREMENTPER HF’S CORE VILLAGE
VBE: Village Barefoot Entrepreneur

Safe Shelter US$ 100

00

Raised bed farming: 40㻌
To avoid f ood waters or saline soil areas• ConstructionbyHHbypayingguidancefeetoVBE

Legend㻦
HH: Household

DRR Centre US$ 5,000/unit

00

HF: Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

FACEBOOK.COM/HERITAGEFOUNDATIONPAKTWITTER.COM/LARIFOUNDATIONHERITAGEFOUNDATIONPAK.ORG

Fig.2: US$ 30,000 integrated model for 100 households− 32 −

(Session1)

to come in and do anything—they can do it themselves.
The DRR-compliant earthen fuel efficient smokeless double stove here is our most popular productto date, which is helping to lay the foundation forfurther work in these villages. These examples areshowing the isometric that we did, and then how
the women made their own innovations. This is theamazing thing that is happening just with mud.
Each trainer is a social franchisee, and each Barefoot Village Entrepreneur is earning by marketing
her product and by teaching others.
I will not go into the amazing transformative effect that the lowly mud stove has spawned. Eachone evokes the pride of the owner and her creativity
by personalizing it so that not one is the same as
any other. She is now able to provide hygienicallycooked food to the family and sits on the elevatedearthen platform as a queen as she dishes out meals
to the family. The hand washing arrangement prevents waterborne diseases and all the utensils areneatly tucked away in the niches of the storage wall.

Fig.3: Social cohesion, self-respect and resilience− 33 −

This woman’s status in society has risen, and thestove has become the family dining space whenonce it was on the ground amidst unhygienic surroundings. Earlier, Terry Cannon also gave suggestions and said there should be more concrete suggestions. I have some concrete suggestions. You
can read them, and maybe we can discuss themlater.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Keynote Presentation (3)Cultural Heritage and the Resilience of Communities
Takamasa Saito
Councillor for Cultural Properties,
Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of JapanThe title of my speech today is "Cultural Heritage
and the Resilience of Communities." Before proceeding, however, I would first like to show everybody a short 6-minute video on this topic. It contains a message which Japan wishes to convey toall.
(Video commences)
Cultural Heritage and Disaster Resilient Communities" (Summar y)
Cultural diversity and cultural heritage form essential foundations for human-centered social economic
development, and yet every year, precious culturalproperties are lost to disasters around the world.
On the 11th of March 2011, Japan was struck by
the Great East Japan Earthquake and the tsunamithat followed. More than 15,000 people lost theirlives. Even today, 2600 people remain missing. Four
years after the earthquake, many residents remain in
temporary housing, some in the same distant locales
to which they were originally evacuated.
This disaster also caused damage to Japan’s cultural heritage. In 19 prefectures, there were 744 casesof damage to cultural heritage safeguarded under thecultural properties protection law. But, of course,
these statistics account for only a fraction of the actual
damage to Japan’s cultural properties.
In the seaport community of Kesennuma in northern Miyagi Prefecture, the tsunami washed over areas of the city facing the bay. Of Kesennuma’s sevenregistered heritage buildings, one was swept away
completely, while six sustained serious damage.
Though these historic buildings were originally given
up for loss by their owners, they received support fromthe local community and from Japanese and overseas
private funders. Today, they safely await full-scale restoration.
The earthquake’s shaking and liquefaction also
damaged a nationally important preservation district
located in the city of Katori, in Chiba Prefecture. Despite the damage, members of the local community
elected to hold their annual festival according toschedule in 2011, in hopes that it would aid in therecovery effort. This coordinated community ap-

proach to recovery, in turn, engendered great support
from within Japan and from abroad.
What was the motivating force behind these successful recovery efforts?
The impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake is
not limited to tangible cultural properties, such asbuildings, historic sites and famous locales. Intangible cultural heritage, such as festivals and annual
events also suffered damage from this disaster. For
example, the props, costumes, and masks used for traditional dance forms, as well as many of the individuals who embodied living cultural traditions were lostin the tsunami. In some regions, communities weredisplaced and scattered. However, many survivors of
this natural disaster found the impetus to recoverthrough the shared culture that had been preserved
within their local communities.
With help from private and corporate funders,neighboring communities, and civic groups with related cultural traditions, the impacted communities
have repaired or remade their festival costumes andcrafts, and people are once again praying, performing, and dancing.
In Japan, intangible heritage supported the resurrection of spirit, and tangible heritage supported theinheritance of memory. They both provided the vitalenergy needed for the rebuilding of lives and the recovery of communities.
In the chaos after the Great East Japan Earthquake, government, academia, industry, and community-based organizations worked together to try
and contain the loss and damage to heritage. For
movable heritage, more than 6,800 exports contributed to the rescue, emergency treatment, and temporary storage of heritage objects at 90 locations in thefour of heavily affected prefectures. In the realm of
immovable heritage, architects surveyed the damage
to over 4,000 buildings. One important challenge going forward is how to maintain and expand this network into the future.
Regions all over the world face disasters, and whendisaster strikes, it is culture that has the power to inspire people in affected areas to restore relationships
and to regain the energy needed to rebuild their lives.
− 34 −

(Session1)

This is why it is so essential that we turn our attention to the cultural heritage at the foundation of ourdaily lives. As we continue preserving this heritage,
we must also ensure its inclusion in regional and national disaster plans. Regular efforts to build capacity, to promote research, to develop networks, and toestablish partnerships are also essential, and we needto enrich international collaboration through existing
systems such as the International Committee of theBlue Shield.
Cultural heritage is a cornerstone of disaster resilient communities. It is up to us to ensure that cultural
heritage, along with the communities that harbor it,
is safely preserved from disasters so that it may behanded down to future generations.
(Video ends)
Figure 1 is actually one of those used in the video. It was kindly made available by Aparna Tandon
from ICCROM. It shows a statue of the Virgin
Mary, which happened to be saved from the rubble

Fig.1: (Photo by Aparna Tandon)

Fig. 2: (Photo by Kumiko Shimotsuma)− 35 −

of a church that collapsed during the Haitian earthquake. As you can see, the area surrounding thestatue has been cleared away and some plants
placed around her.
Figure 2 shows some of the devastation inflicted
upon Kesennuma by the Great East Japan Earthquake. On the streets of a city catastrophically damaged by tsunami, you can clearly see a red torii, thearchway of a Shinto shrine. In actual fact, residents
living in the vicinity wanted to rebuild this torii,
which belonged to Ikkejima Shrine, even before
they repaired their own homes. The earthquake
struck on the 11th of March 2011. I have been told,
however, that the local community still managed tohold their regular major festival a mere six months
later in September.
In showing you these photographs, I would liketo focus upon a similar cultural phenomenon that
seemed evident in Haiti and Japan. As human beings, we need to be sensitive to this sort of cultural
power which can arise in the wake of a disaster.
What drives this sort of power is that the cultural
heritage in question enjoys a close affinity with thelives of the people. Moreover, among this cultural
heritage, there are many examples of that which is
not subject to the protection of legal provisions.
As was also introduced in the video, of the total
number of items of cultural heritage which are safeguarded by the cultural properties protection law,
the Great East Japan Earthquake inflicted damagein 744 cases, the impacted items being located insome 19 prefectures throughout the country. Of
these 744 cases, for the 92 where the damage inflicted was especially severe, the Agency for Cul-

Tokyo Strategy Meetingtural Affairs has made use of national subsidies tofund restoration projects. To date, the total budget
allocation for these projects is approximately ¥89
billion, with restoration in 79 cases (or 86% of thetotal) planned for completion at the end of thismonth (March 2015). For such items of cultural
heritage, which deserve to be preserved by the nation, restoration support activities have continued.
However, as is always an issue when confronted bya major disaster, the problem is how should thosecultural properties which fall outside the protectionof the legal provisions be saved and their restoration supported.
Concerning those cultural properties that thenation is unable to support financially, the Commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs has cooperated in calls for donations, which have been madeby the Foundation for Cultural Heritage and Art Research, and also by the Japan National Trust. At theFoundation for Cultural Heritage and Art Research,in addition to its cooperation with the Agency for
Cultural Affairs, by it both coordinating and cooperating with organizations such as Samsung Japan
Corporation and the World Monuments Fund, etc.,
it had successfully secured some ¥370 million in donations as of May 2014. From 2012 to 2014, theFoundation for Cultural Heritage and Art Researchsubsidized roughly 160 projects. At the Japan National Trust meanwhile, the Natural and Cultural
Heritage Recovery Support Project was establishedin May 2011. Furthermore, by May 2014 they hadcollected approximately ¥66 million in donations.
This money has subsequently been used in the support of some 41 projects.
In the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake,
due to community relocations and land-usage revisions, numerous large-scale development projects

Fig.3: (Photo by Archaeological Center, Iwate Cultural Promotion
Agency)have resulted. Such projects in turn have createdthe necessity for a balance being struck with respect to archaeological cultural properties. Against
the backcloth of there being the desire for a speedy
recovery, such a set of circumstances is a classic
example of a situation whereby cultural properties
may come to be regarded as a form of shackle.
However, it should also be recognized that underground relics represent important evidence that is
capable of conveying the history of local areas.
Thus, steps have been taken by the Agency for Cultural Affairs and by various regional bodies to bothsecure funding and enhance systems. Then, while
responsibly informing local populations, efforts
have been made to quickly survey the applicablesites. Figure 3 shows an archaeological dig occurring in the foreground, while preparations for aresidential development continue behind. By proactively displaying to local residents the results of thearchaeological digs that have been undertaken
within the context of the surrounding restoration
projects, some of the excavated ruins were subsequently adopted as a symbol of the contemporary
recovery efforts. There have also been examples ofmajor parts of archaeological digs subsequently being retained and preserved within the areas of landthat had been allocated for the construction of disaster-recovery public housing. While on the one
hand there has been loss of cultural property within
the context of the Great East Japan Earthquake, on
the other, due to the reconstruction undertaken byregional communities, there have been discoveries
made as to the possible benefits that both culture
and the cultural heritage might offer.
Through accumulating, analyzing and sharing
information that deals with a great variety of suchcases, and by then strategically formulating the results thereof, I believe we will find that a future objective of disaster risk reduction is to enhance themanner in which cultural heritage is normally protected. Furthermore, to fulfill the basic mission of
the Agency for Cultural Affairs, which is to save as
much cultural heritage as possible, and to improve
our emergency chains of command, so that we may
also swiftly engage in rescue activities, we are currently considering steps that shall allow us to quickly enhance those networks that we share with related parties. What is more, with respect to the local
disaster-prevention plans developed by various regional bodies, we feel that support should be offered to enhance the cataloging of heritage items.
The information thus generated will constitute ba− 36 −(Session1)

sic data that can be used in the event of future rescue activities.
Additionally, in order to contribute to resilience,
we also believe that steps should be taken to further
enhance our cooperative relationships with relevant
ministries and agencies. In the case of Kesennuma
in Miyagi Prefecture, featured in the video, within
the Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) initiated by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, which paved the way for the subsequent recovery efforts, was the inclusion of aheading dealing with historic communities. In Kesennuma, while the buildings recognized as culturalproperties, which were located in the vicinity of thebay, were greatly damaged, further inland many

− 37 −

historic structures remained along the city’s streets.
Thus, what the findings of this PDNA allowed for
were proposals arguing that the city’s historic environment should be given some consideration within the wider recovery process. Such arguments arelinked to the current restoration of the cultural heritage buildings.
Although much remains to be done, the Agency
for Cultural Affairs is deliberating as how to best
follow up on the measures taken in response to theGreat East Japan Earthquake. We are doing this toleave the nation’s cultural heritage in an even better
state, and also to assist in the creation of disasterresilient communities.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Overall Discussion[Facilitators]
Giovanni Boccardi, Kumiko Shimotsuma

Joseph King:I would like to address my first question to Terry
Cannon. You mentioned in your presentation thatyou were not convinced with the definition of somewords, particularly “resilience,” “sustainable development” and “community.” With regard to “community,” it was quite interesting to hear your idea about
the diversities or complexities within a community
and the needs for understanding them. I would liketo hear your proposals for replacing the definitionof “resilience” and “sustainable development,” as I
agree with you that these are jargon words and theymean different things to different people.
I don’t recall that “resilience” was a very prominent word 10 years ago in expert meetings like this.
It has blossomed, for the last 10 years, into a popularized directional term. My questions to Terry
Cannon are how we can avoid jargon, and what are
you suggesting in terms of replacing its concept.
Terr y Cannon:
Thank you. What we have to think about is the politics or the power that are underlying the terms.
When a term becomes a buzzword, it becomes convenient to organizations and governments that want
to use the term for their particular purposes. The
previous dominant concept was not “resilience” but“vulnerability.” I would say that you need to explain
why people are vulnerable when you use the word
“vulnerability.” On the other hand, you can leaveout the explanation when you use the word “resilience.”
Nobody can be against the idea that we need tobe more resilient. But the issue is why people are
not resilient already. The explanation of why people
need resilience is missing when the conceptual
term is used in this way. I think it would be politically convenient for those who like to use the jargon
words to avoid talking about the causes. What weexactly need to do is to look at the causes and to illustrate why people need to be resilient.
I used a similar argument about community.
When the word “community” is used, it avoids looking at causes of the vulnerability within communi-ties. However, vulnerability is actually generated atvarious community levels, including landlords, local residents, or local politicians. What we reallyhave to understand and what we should not avoid isthe fact that there is exploitation and oppression going on in these places. Therefore, my concern about
the use of conceptual terms like these is that they
are embedded in politics and that a political behavior usually tries to avoid looking at why a problem
exists.
The same is true with the term “sustainable.”
Sustainable is now used widely and conveniently bypoliticians in Britain, who don’t seem to have a clue
what an original idea of sustainability was, shown in
the Brundtland Report (1987), as an example.
Now, what buzzwords would I use instead? I
would like to talk about the question by using theterm of “development.” Development, if it’s done
properly as we saw from some wonderful examples
in the presentation by Yasmeen Lari, is going to besustainable and it doesn’t need the word “sustainable” to be there. And development is defined as the
improvement of people’s well-being.
For the last 10 to 15 years, development has replaced by the term “growth” or “economic growth.”
Under the cover of the development, we have todrive economic growth that will eliminate poverty.
However, I don’t believe this logic. It is economic
growth that is causing the problems, I consider. We
actually need to understand the politics that are underlying these words and concepts and the causesof the problems.
Giovanni Boccardi:
Thank you. I would like to ask you where culture
and heritage would fit into the definitions that you
mentioned.
Terr y Cannon:
There was a slide which I didn’t show you during
my presentation. In the slide, I’ve tried to link ideasof culture and heritage to power relationships. Culture means many things, and we know that culture
is a reflection of class systems. In the Western Eu− 38 −(Session1)

ropean world; we have what is commonly called“elite culture,” in which people go to enjoy operasor symphonies. On the other hand, we have “popular culture.” These reflect a class system.
Much of the tangible heritage that we’re talking
about in the world is related to elite culture. They
are cathedrals, temples, places of power and authority, which often survive over centuries because ofgood materials and craftspeople.
When disasters destroy material culture, while
elite culture survives, we have very little of popular
culture left in many places. What I would ask is that
we actually start interpreting material and non-material culture through the understanding of power
relationships. In most of their lives, people don’ttake the main hazards seriously. Their priority istheir everyday life, food on their plates, jobs, traffic
accidents or sickness.
If people are not able to give priorities to the serious risks that they face, how can we expect them totake heritage seriously, especially when it represents elite culture? This is what I would like to argue at this meeting. How can we make connections
among development, risk, culture, beliefs, and heritage? Building those links is an important challenge at this meeting, and we need to pay attention
to a power system that is always embedded in thisissue.
Randolph Langenbach:I find the whole presentation by Terry Cannon extremely stimulating and interesting. From thestandpoint of the work I’ve done, the word “resilience” is useful. In the fields of structural engineering and architectural conservation, talking about
structure and earthquakes, strength has proved
wanting in terms of the problems that I see.
In India, they say that pucca houses built of durable materials like brick, stone, timber or cement arestrong, and kucha houses built of earth and organic
material are weak. However, occasionally, pucca
houses that supposed to be strong fall and kucha
houses that supposed to be weak remain standing.
The word “resilience” is good to make out what weare really trying to achieve in the structural engineering aspect.
I also enjoyed the presentation by Yasmeen Lariparticularly the typology of new buildings she hasdone. She mentioned that they are actually flood resistant by means of mud walls or plinths consolidated by lime. I am wondering how you stabilize thesuperstructures made of mud for water infection− 39 −and how they have proven to be resistant.
Yasmeen Lari:
Thank you for the question. For the longest time
everybody has thought that mud is not worth using
as a building material, and Kucha is vulnerable.
In my experiences in a heritage field, I’ve used
lime at various places, from the beginning and still
today. I recognize that lime is not only resistant toweather, but also useful as insulation.
As Randolph Langenbach pointed out, there areplaces where flood water comes to the approximate
height of 6 inches and consequently many buildings are destroyed. So, every time the plinth must
be made higher than the recorded highest floodlevel, and then, I use a lot of lime over the building,particularly at the top part and the foot part. The top
part has to be protected against heat, and lime hasheat-resistance. The base is made of concrete reinforced by bamboo and lime, as lime has water-resistance. For the render, lime and mud are used toprovide weather-resistance.
We studied the whole of Pakistan and recognizethat there are different aspects in different areas.
We need to have a solution for each one of them.
Aparna Tandon:
I would like to thank all the three speakers today forgiving us a very good start. It is an excellent start tothis conference.
I would like to make my first comment to thepresentation by Terry Cannon. I agree with the ideathat there are power plays, that there is an elitist
culture, and that we are still discovering our real
heritage. On the other hand, I consider that there isa dichotomy when we have to look at heritage fromthe viewpoint of power play. In the dichotomy, we
are at risk of treating people as mere biological entities who just need or only worry about food, water,and shelter.
My second comment is to the presentation by
Yasmeen Lari. She illustrated that, when they arelooking for shelters, women want to paint them anddecorate them. So there rests my argument thatpeople are more than mere biological entities andwherever they are, they create an environment.
There is a little more sophistication needed when
we are talking about recovery, reconstruction, andculture.
Paula Holland:
I would like to thank all the speakers in this morn-

Tokyo Strategy Meetinging for very interesting presentations. My question
is to Yasmeen Lari. In the Pacific, we are extremely
and increasingly reliant on a cluster system as away of getting different agencies to talk to eachother, to become aware of the needs of each of thesectors, and to come up with some kind of holistic
response to disasters. Therefore, I am dismayed tohear that this is ageing in Pakistan and I was interested to hear a little bit more about how it is notworking and if you had any recommendations for
improving it or alternative options to support thatcoordination and communication.
Michael Turner:Thank you to the three speakers for a very stimulating start of the discussion. I would like to ask all thepanelists about “vernacular solutions” such as repairs made by women in Pakistan. Do you feel thatall disasters are in vernacular areas? Are we now ina situation that there are disasters in areas wherethe vernacular is less relevant to tradition that exists in a more universal area?
Giovanni Boccardi:
I understand that there are comments and questions to Terry Cannon and Yasmeen Lari. Aparna
Tandon emphasized the fact that human beings are
more than just biological beings. Paula Holland
asked if you had any recommendations to help coordinating response of different humanitarian organizations. And Michael Turner asked you what
you would do if disasters happen in a place with lesstraditional knowledge or vernacular buildings. Terry, you have the floor, then Yasmeen please.
Terr y Cannon:
For Aparna Tandon’s comment, I don’t think at allthat we have a difference on this. I said that people
give priority to food, malaria, water, traffic accidents. These are the empirical results done aroundthe world on what is called vulnerability and on capacity assessments. NGOs, the Red Cross, Red
Crescent, and almost every country, especially developing countries, have done thousands of them.
When you ask people what your risks are, these are
the typical responses that they give. Therefore, I’m
not playing down the fact that culture is important,but reflecting what people worry about.
What you’re saying about the importance of peoples’ non-biological behaviors and their needs isabsolutely right. In a hillside community, a researcher found that people are more willing tospend money on the annual festival of the placethan disaster risk reduction. The reason is so logical, that the festival, which brings people together
to create the clothes or to practice dances like atsamba schools in Brazil̶I mean samba schools,
which are attended by some of the poorest people
in big cities in Brazil̶is a way of having their placein the society.
What I’m trying to get at is a mismatch between
organizations and people. While organizations
claim that they are wanting to help people to do disaster risk reduction, in fact, people do not want disaster risk reduction and they want the other things
to be solved first.
In the book entitled At Risk that we published in
1994, there is an argument that you cannot deal
with disasters separately from dealing with development. The two have to go hand-in-hand. It is absolutely pointless that disaster experts go to a village
in a country and say “we are coming here as experts to help you deal with typhoons, volcanoes, or
earthquakes.” After all, people will not be interested
in disaster risk reduction unless you also deal with
their everyday needs. It is after you have done thatyou can begin to get people to be interested in solving the problems which may not come for 5 years or
100 years.
Yasmeen Lari:
What Aparna Tandon said is at the core of the whole
discourse today, I think. As I always say, if you canbring pride among people to what they do, half ofthe battle is done. If they know this is somethingthat is going to belong to them, they have a pride in
it and a stake in it, then they will take care to buildin the way that we want them to build.
The problem is that, whenever particular questionnaires are circulated, culture doesn’t appear inany one of them. They only ask if you need food,water, or shelter. Therefore, I think that all disasteraid agencies also need to ask people what is valuable for them, because the question might bring us
other answers.
We do a lot of heritage work apart from disasteraid. For instance, we have recently developed aninventory of 1000 sites in Sindh. Through the work,
we recognized that each one of them is vulnerable,
located in far-off areas, and a part of popular culture. Even stupas, mosques, or shrines, relevant
communities actually built them and there is no elitism aspect at all. However, even at World Heritage
sites such as Mohenjo-daro, we can see a case of− 40 −

(Session1)

community involvement.
If people come to work together and start to takepride in the work, they will safeguard the heritage
as their own property. Therefore, we really have tochange our on-site behaviors and operations. While
we usually operate through high level expertise, weshould drill down the problem at the lowest level.
That is what I am trying to do.
With regard to the Paula Holland’s question, it is
an issue that has bothered me for some time andeven now. Many well-meaning agencies have cometo help us but they are in different compartments.
For instance, one agency has its mandate to build
25 shelter units in each village, and completes its
task at one village-A. But the village-A has watersupply problems. There actually is another agency
who conducts water supply work in a neighboringvillage-B, and it comes to the village-A to develop awater supply system. Then, a food supply issue
comes. Everything is happening in a very fragmented manner like this, as villagers cannot understandhow they can handle disasters comprehensively
from a fraction shown by one agency.
Each agency should do its own work. That isfine. But, it should work in a suitable way for thecommunity. Therefore, we need to provide a modelin which each agency’s work can become usefuland effective, and that people of the place can manage its products. How to bring a good coordination
among all the relevant agencies is a big and important issue. We need to discuss a little bit more about
how we can resolve this issue and how we can develop our recommendation.
Let’s move to Michael Turner’s question. I was
so impressed by the video that shows Japan’s recovery efforts after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
While I admire some rich and wealthy countries’ efforts, I do not consider that I can copy these in mycountry because of many issues including less concern by the Government, poor coordination system, and insufficient funding. Poor countries or lowincome countries need enormous amounts of help
and we have to have different strategies for them.
If a huge disaster happens in the Third World
countries now, communities become vulnerable.
Another following disaster would make their vulnerabilities lower. As I mentioned, the core of poverty is a real big issue. Unless immediately tackled
through development, we will not be able to reachour goals. We have to find a different way of supporting particular communities in the Third World.

− 41 −

Akatsuki Takahashi:
Let me talk a little bit about the cluster system. After the Cyclone Evan hit Samoa in December 2012,
I participated in PDNA with an expert from the Japan ICOMOS. We took part in the damage assessment from the viewpoint of culture.
The results of this assessment were used insome other PDNA fields, including housing, environmental protection and tourism. This gave me an
impression that culture has intrinsically close relations to various elements of national development
above and beyond the conventional field of heritage, museums, libraries, or archives.
I just wanted to share this information after the
wonderful presentations.
Giovanni Boccardi:
PDNA will be discussed in another session.
Timothy Curtis:
Some important issues appeared from the presentations in this session, particularly coordination
among organizations, and culture of organizations.
Both in theory and through experiences, I understand that the coordination issue is quite often
linked to the culture of organizations.
My question to Terry Cannon is if there are any
good ideas or plans to deal with these issues, forexample an ethnographic approach to start unpacking and restructuring these organizations in a more
systematic way. Whether it is in the area of disasterrisk reduction, economic development, or humanitarian affairs, this is actually a big problem.
Giovanni Boccardi:
Before Terry Cannon responds, I want to talk about
the facilitators’ difficult task to come up with specific action points from each session. We have now
10 more minutes. I would like to use the rest of thissession time to inspire you to draw suggestions or
proposals from what we have heard and discussed.
Terr y Cannon:
The four coeditors of the IFRC’s 2014 World Disaster Report that focuses on “Culture and Risk,” wehave actually been trying to work on culture anddisasters for quite a while. We had two conferencesin Germany, and an academic book will come out ina couple of months, which is more ethnographic
about people than organizations.
As a concrete outcome from those, next year at
the British Museum in London, a conference on an-Tokyo Strategy Meeting

thropology, archaeology and climate change will beorganized. I am going to propose to put a session on
the anthropology of organizations.
I would like to welcome the participation of experts from this meeting.
Giovanni Boccardi:
As a representative of UNESCO, I fear this inquiry
into the organizational culture.
Joseph King:
Conversely, as a representative of ICCROM, I would
welcome such a study. I expect that it may bringgood changes.
I would like to make a comment on cluster systems. They get developed and sometimes theywork, and sometimes they don’t work. People always need to go back to learn what is working andwhat is not, or what is helping the systems and what
is not. What we are actually accomplishing andwhat we need to accomplish, a way of working together in good cooperation and coordination.
Therefore, the question of “culture of organizations” is very valid, I think. We tend to think of culture as what other people do. But, we have also culture and we need to learn our culture itself.
Yasmeen Lari:
Let me say a few words on this. At the UNESCO
conference on culture in Florence, Italy, I heard one
UNDP representative said that UNDP is very keen
to bring culture into development. I went up to herlater to tell that every UNDP development projectin Pakistan has nothing to support cultural activities
because UNESCO is not at all involved in it.
I think there is a lack of coordination among UN
agencies. This conference should really make apoint to say that they have to coordinate. They
come and discuss how much funding is required. I
appreciate that. But they have to come together at
the same table to work out where they have to givepriorities to put their money. Because if all the relevant elements are put together, the effect becomes
far greater than the one of a single unit being put up
next to the community.
Peter Stone:
This morning, we have heard a lot about the needfor bottom-up organization. If communities aretransmitters, we also need receivers at the otherend to catch their voices. Thinking about UNDP
and culture, I am extremely disappointed with thefact that there was no mention of culture in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
I know that there are lots of discussions going on
at the moment about the revision of the development goals.
Perhaps one message that this group might wantto put together collectively is that culture needs tobe a fundamental building block of any future millennium goal system. Because without this concept,
any change of the systems is in some ways meaningless.
Giovanni Boccardi:
Let me address this point. Indeed, major effort has
been made to achieve precisely this objective, andmany studies, conferences, and declarations havebeen conducted or developed. The UN General Assembly has adopted three consecutive resolutions
reaffirming this principle and we are working as
much as we can to make sure that this is reflectedin the final outcome of this long process, but it’s noteasy. It’s not easy not only for UNESCO but also for
its member states.
I have some questions for Takamasa Saito. With
regard to the Japan’s efforts to rescue and recovercultural heritage affected by the 2011 earthquake, I
consider that the information is quite useful forother countries. Do you have some tools to sharethe experiences, for instance, books, reports, or
guidelines?
Takamasa Saito:
In the 2014 Fiscal Year, NICH established the Executive Committee of the National Task Force for
the Japanese Cultural Heritage Disaster Risk Mitigation Network in order to promote the activities of
the Cultural Heritage Disaster Risk Mitigation Network. In this framework, information on Japanesepast experiences will be compiled. I am informedthat an official homepage for the Program is currently under preparation in Japanese then in English as well.
In the 2013 Fiscal Year, a report on the recoveryof cultural heritage was published in both Japaneseand English.
In this way, we would actively like to share ourexperiences and facilitate better communication
with other countries.
Giovanni Boccardi:
We have reached 11:30. I would like to make someclosing comments based on some key questions− 42 −

(Session1)

still retained in my mind.
For Terry Cannon’s presentation, I am considering how we can make sure relevant institutions̶
not only to DRR but also to cultural heritage̶apply
a culturally-sensitive approach, how we can practically make it happen, and what sort of tools weshould develop. These might be something to think
about when we develop our recommendations.
Yasmeen Lari presented a wonderful example ofwhat she is doing in Pakistan. But, it seems to beefforts by a single NGO that works more or less in
isolation. I can also feel a gap between what she isdoing in her country single-handedly and what
could be done everywhere. I wonder what we needto do to make sure government agencies, NGOs, orhumanitarian organizations do what she does in Pakistan as a standard practice, what kind of tools or
capacity building activities should be developed,
and what sort of policy changes are required.
The Takamasa Saito’s presentation was anothermagnificent example to show a power of heritageand culture. There were many specific suggestions
in his slides and video, including administrative
chain of command, support to local governments,
and development of inventory. We could consider
all these things to develop our recommendations.
I’m turning to Kumiko Shimotsuma. Is there anything else that you would like to say?
Kumiko Shimotsuma:
I am happy to say that the first session was very
productive.
Firstly, it was meaningful to discuss the definitions of some keywords, including “resilience,”“community” and “sustainable development.” With
regard to a definition of “resilience,” while there
were some differences between Terry Cannon andRandolph Langenbach, they showed the common
concept that causes of risk should be appreciatedand analyzed appropriately to achieve the strength
ensured by local populations.
Secondly, highlighting the role of communities,
we could recognize the need to pay attention not
only to elite culture but also to popular culture. On
this point, especially from my standpoint, cultural
authorities are required to review their conventional protection methods to develop policies to help
people conserve what is truly valuable for them.
Thirdly, when we consider popular culture, I
have an impression from Terry Cannon’s presentation that recognition of the relationship among belief, sense of value, attitude, and the behavior may− 43 −

bring us to important suggestions to ensure a connection between development and culture.
The three keynote presentations and the roundtable discussion in the Session 1 provided enoughsuggestions to give us a fundamental direction for
discussions to follow.
Giovanni Boccardi:
If there are no other comments, I would like toclose Session 1. Thank you so much.

Fig.1: three Keynote Speakers, Terry Cannon [right], Yasmeen
Lari [center], and Takamasa Saito [left] (Photo by NICH)

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Session 2
Roles of Cultural Heritage inUnderstanding Disaster Risk
[Facilitators] Timothy Curtis, Takeyuki Okubo
Contents
Presentation（2-1）
Change in Historic Environments and the Needs to Prevent New Risks

Christopher Marrion

Presentation（2-2）
Use of Traditional Knowledge Systems to Promote DRR

Webber Ndoro

Presentation(2-3）
Traditional is Modern: Traditional Building Technology
for Resilience in the Modern Era

Randolph Langenbach

Presentation（2-4）
Local Disaster Risk Reduction Activities Based on Integrated Heritage
Conservation

Akira Tanaka

Roundtable Discussion

Jeremy Barns,
Alissandra Cummins,
Yuji Hasemi,
Kensaku Kikuchi(Session 2)

Presentation (2-1)
Change in Historic Environments and the Needs to Prevent New Risks
Christopher E. Marrion
CEO of Marrion Fire & Risk Consulting

When we look at cultural heritage including buildings, sites, urban ensembles, and landscapes, we
see that at one point in time when they were originally designed and built, the designers knew therisks and hazards which they needed to mitigate.
However, over time environments change, and therisks change accordingly, and that can ultimately
impact heritage. This report examines some ofthese different changes to the environment and theresultant impacts on heritage, and how we may beable to address these impacts in the future.
Urbanization, for instance, creates a situation
where the society and cities have to adapt to the
population flows from rural to urban areas. Cities
are expanding their areas horizontally and spreadvertically to the skies and underground. It has beensuggested that by 2050, roughly 65% of the developing world and over 80% of the developed world will
be urbanized.
It often happens that fast paced changes with insufficient planning caue unpredictable impacts.
Among them, the impacts on many heritage sitesthat existed for hundreds, or even thousands ofyears, including rainwater flooding and diversion ofwater sources, vibration, air pollution, noise pollution, aesthetical, and spiritual problems. Additionally, the factor of overcrowding becomes a source of
direct fire and explosion hazards in warehouses,
road and railway tunnels. Thus, there are a numberof impacts to people, buildings, infrastructure, land
use and cultural heritage.
On top of this, there were cases of the demolitionof cultural heritage for new construction, or rebuilding of the early 1900s historic buildings, as it happened to the Hearst building in New York City. Theinterior of this building was completely removed,
leaving only the facade with the new structure
placed on top. As we see, there are plenty of examples where the advances of urbanization are impacting cultural heritage.
Another risk introduced to cultural heritage inurban areas is the construction of the cities’ iconic
landmarks. The Freedom Tower in New York City,
for instance, has at least four cultural heritage build− 47 −ings in close proximity that may be potentially affected by this adjacent iconic structure.
From urbanization to the other extreme comes
the desertification. It is a loss of biodiversity andproductive capacity within an area or a region. Suchloss is oftentimes caused by overgrazing, over-farming, deforestation, diversion of surface water resources, depletion of groundwater, and climatechange. There are a number of areas around theworld impacted by desertification. These hostile environments are causing impact on human lives, aswell as on plants, animals, and vegetation, erasing
important cultural heritage works and destroyingor altering traditional ways of life. It is said that desertification had also played a significant role in thefall of various empires and civilizations, from the
Roman Empire and Carthage to Ancient Greece.
Changes to land and water use also impact ourheritage. One can see the impacts, for instance,from the Tigris River floods in the early 1900s. Overtime, the adjacent urban development caused impact on the water as well as the ground area of theriver. The increase in vegetation and the agricultural expansion had altered the surrounding area,
making the remaining structural components morefragile.
Changes to the land and water use occur in historical sites located near water, such as Venice. The
transit of large ships and the overflow of the population in the area is interfering with the movement ofwater in the canals, creating stresses on the city’s
infrastructure. The overall impacts on the shorelines and building structures is leading to the gradual destruction of Venice’s cultural heritage.
In addition, there are changes going on with landin terms of fracking. This can be better seen at national parks and archaeological sites. Fracking isresulting in significant water usage, water pollution,
and air pollution, as well as in increasing seismic
activity in the areas. One can see the exponential
growth in the number of such activities impactingsome of the national historic sites and other areas.
Another risk is changes in functionality in management mechanisms and ownership. For instance,Tokyo Strategy Meetingthe placing of McDonald’s into different types ofstructures including historical buildings. The resulting change of internal environment increases
the stress on interiors in terms of mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and other structural facilities, impacting aesthetics and architectural layouts. It isalso potentially imposing additional hazards
through heating, cooking, and related fire hazards
that may not have existed prior to the conversion.
On one hand, the structures are being saved andnot torn down, but there are additional hazards being posed.
In terms of the functionality and ownershipchange, the Krásna Hôrka Castle in Slovakia wentfrom a fort to a castle to a museum, and one may
imagine some of the transformations. This fort remained intact for 500 – 600 years. And somewhat
ironically, back in 2012, two 12-year old boys weresmoking cigarettes at the bottom of the hill and lit
the hill on fire, which then ignited the grass, caught
the trees on fire around the castle, leapt to thewooden roof and heavily damaged the historic
structure.
With the changes in use, the risk levels arechanging. At the time of the fort, the vegetation
around was probably kept low to prevent something
like this from happening. There were no trees
growing around the castle for a number of reasons.
However, now that potential hazards and risks havechanged over time, it is important to pay attention
to the impacts of fire and other external hazards.
Even if things were safe and how they were intended to be at one time, as ownership, management,
and functionality changes, one needs to be aware toaddress hazards differently.
Another risk for cultural heritage is mass tourism that is attracting big numbers of people to tourist destinations, damaging or destroying sites andstructures. Introducing the changes to accommodate large occupant loads often creates a significant
impact on cultural heritage sites because of the insufficient regulations on where the tourists are able
to go, and the abundance of people allowed on sites.
Regarding climate change, it is impacting allbuildings including historic buildings, and historicand archaeological sites. Acid rain represents a particular man-made natural hazard. It slowly deteriorates the structures with its acidity, corrosiveness,smog, and carbon, and consequently also causing
impact on cultural heritage.
Wildfires nowadays are becoming more devastating than before. Therefore it is important to un-derstand their mechanism. Wildfires are naturally
occurring phenomena. Several hundred years ago
fires were more frequent. They lasted for shorter
durations of time, burning lower vegetation but
stopping at the trees that were able to resist thesesmaller, low energy fires. However, over time, we
tried to prevent fires for various reasons, obstructing the natural thinning and clearing out of the vegetation, which led to the accumulation of much
more combustible material within the forest baseline. Accordingly, the frequency of fires reduced,
but when they occur they are much faster, and release larger heat energy. Trees, resilient to shortduration fires, when receiving such high amountsof heat energy, become completely destroyed. Thisis obviously impacting archeological sites, nationalparks, and other cultural heritage. Moreover, because there is nothing to keep supporting the earthand sand, landslides are caused. If the forests areruined, it will change the overall ecological systems
and environment.
At times, historic buildings and cultural heritage
sites may be moved to another site for conservation
reasons. While it may save the sites from destruction, it is important to remember that the relocation
can introduce additional shocks, stresses, and hazards. One example is the moving of Ramesses Great
Temple back in the 1960s. It was located near theriver and was going to be submerged due to thedam construction, so it was moved to a slightly different location. One, though, needs to consider
whether this alternate location is safe. What is theimpact of the new location on this particular monument? If we are moving things, what does thatchange, and can this introduce new hazards andrisks?
There are many examples of purposeful destruction or knowingly impacting cultural heritage. For
instance, numerous dams have been built over theyears that endanger cultural heritage adjacent torivers. These dams are causing floods, damaging
important cultural heritage sites. Some examples of
the negative impacts on cultural heritage of damming include the work at the Three Gorges Dam,
Zeugma, and Hasankeyf.
Under the theme of purposeful destruction,
there are a lot of mining activities at times occuring
at the location of heritage sites or archaeologicalsites. For instance, near Kabul a mining company
had given the archaeologists just a couple of years
before they were going to start mining and destroying the numerous heritage underground. That is an− 48 −

(Session 2)

extremely short amount of time permitted for the
excavation and removal of heritage that existed forseveral thousand years. Even realizing the value ofheritage, we will eventually damage it by changing
our environment, as has happened many times.
Malicious destruction has occurred throughout
time, and we are now experiencing an increase inthis meaningful destruction in Iraq and Syria as oflate.
There are also a lot of things happening that are
increasing hazards and risks, impacting cultural
heritage, impacting the environments in which it
was originally designed and constructed. Therefore, we need to be mindful in order to limit these
impacts. These new risks and hazards are now
gradually changing the environments in which cultural heritage has existed for many years. It was not
originally designed to withstand those hazards andrisks. Therefore, we must continue to explore what
can be done to help mitigate them.
Regarding the increase in activities on the protection of heritage sites and structures, one method
worth noting is the incorporation of disaster risk
reduction requirements into financing agreements
when global banks or other organizations are funding some of the ongoing projects. Such agreements
are protecting the investments during restoration
works, which can generate new hazards. In addition, the incorporation of appropriate prevention
and mitigation measures is one aspect of heritage
protection.
Media plays an important role in disaster risk
reduction, creating awareness, and getting the rightstories and information to the public. This is true
before, during and after an event has occurred.
Additionally, the incorporation of traditional
knowledge, materials and systems is very important, as there is a tremendous amount that can belearned from it. One has to think about the role thattraditional assets play in the development of urban
and rural communities. It is also important to keep
in mind the 1000−2000-year-old temples here in
Japan that were designed and built to be able to resist earthquakes over the centuries. Another example is the gingerbread houses in Haiti and their resistance to the last earthquake compared with otherstructures of alternate construction methods that
did not withstand the earthquake.

− 49 −

Finally, there are a number of constructive opportunities and abundant potential in the future interms of protecting our cultural heritage from disasters. Here in Japan, there is our organization andthe activities centered on the Sendai Framework for
Disaster Risk Reduction. Among other organizations that are necessary and important for the protection of cultural heritage, there is the Resilient
Cities campaign and the Ten Essentials document
activities.
These considerations are important in order for
cultural heritage to be strongly incorporated andproperly described in the framework documents.
However, the implementation of these policies isequally important. This can be done with the help ofvarious international organizations including UNESCO, ICCROM, ICOMOS, ICOM, and others that
continue to develop and implement strategies to assist in protecting our cultural heritage throughout
the world.

Christopher Marrion PE, FSFPE
Marrion Fire & Risk Consulting PE, LLC
www.marrionconsulting.com
Chris.marrion@marrionconsulting.com
1.646.642.1265
REFERENCES:
Living With Risk: A Global Review of Disaster Reduction Initiatives,
UNISDR, 2004.
Marrion, C. Prevention and Disaster Management, www.marrionconsulting.com
Wisner, B, et al, At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability
and Disasters, Rutledge, London, England, 2004.
“Disaster Management Planning”, www.marrionconsulting.com
Custer, RLP and Marrion, Christopher E. – “Design To Manage
Fire and Its Impact”, Extreme Event Mitigation in Buildings- Analysis and Design, NFPA, Quincy, MA 2006.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Presentation (2-2)
Use of Traditional Knowledge Systems to Promote DRR
Webber Ndoro
Director,
African World Heritage Fund

Traditional systems indicate that there are different
perceptions of disasters and of crises by different
cultural groups. Africa, as a continent, is known tobe prone to disasters all the time. However, the majority of these are man-made rather than natural.
Perhaps the biggest disaster which happened to
Africa’s heritage was caused by HIV AIDS, as wellas the structural adjustment program of the 1990s
to 2000. These had a greater impact on the way heritage was managed to the extent that, today, heritage institutions in Africa are still trying to recover.
Institutions were affected by loss of funds and limited human resources.
Civil conflicts in Africa are probably the majordisasters in the continent. There are of course, other threats to Africa’s heritage. For example, the construction of dams as part of development – this is aquestion which Africa, as a developing continent,
always has to address.
Tradition systems and customs are generally regarded as a double-edged sword. On one side, traditional systems may actually make communities vulnerable to disasters. But at the same time, the factthat they have gone through these disasters over along time means they have built some resilience.
Generally speaking, traditional customs andknowledge systems come out of day-to-day practicein response to what is happening on a daily basis.
Traditions tend to be very persistent, but there isalways one thing which is important; there is continuity, there is always change and this at times
comes into conflict with expertsʼ definition of heritage, particularly on the issues of authenticity andintegrity. Traditions change all the time.
Knowledge systems, as they are envisioned by
local communities, have a major role to play intimes of crisis, far more important than the large
contingents of expertise who tend to flock to Africa
when disaster occurs, and even more important
than the funds which come in.
However, when one talks about Africa, we haveto realize that Africa is a continent, not a country.
Africa is a continent with 55 countries. I would also
dare say that the traditions change from place toplace. There is no one African tradition or African
culture, but they are African traditions and cultures.
Africa has been impacted by different religious belief systems–the so called triple heritage (traditional religion, Islam and Christianity)–and these tend
to affect also the way communities respond to andmitigate disasters.
Equally important to note is that African traditional knowledge and practices have been neglected over many years. The management of heritage
places has at times incorporated traditional management systems with some success. Take the example of Kasubi Tombs in Uganda. This is a sitewhich has survived through colonial occupation,
survived even the brutal regime of Idi Amin, themilitary adventures of Milton Obote who followed
Idi Amin, and even the present government attempts to crush traditional systems.
The system has developed a resilience of somekind. The place I introduce next is a burial for the
Kabakas, the kings of Buganda. The Bunganda
have always known that there will be changes, andthere have been changes in the way the tombs havebeen built. For example, in the 1970s, some of thetombs were actually roofed using corrugated ironsheets. However, when the site was then nominatedto the World Heritage List in 2001, this was described as one of the best examples of vegetablearchitecture, and therefore, it had to be re-thatchedso that it looked traditional.
Here was another danger of freezing traditions
for the Ugandans, the place is a burial place for the
Kabaka. Whatever you put on the roof does notchange the way the place is perceived by the local
communities. For World Heritage, it must have thatthatched roof for it to maintain the Outstanding Universal Value. Unfortunately, the site was destroyedby fire in 2010, and the community again came together to try and help making sure that they canrepair or restore the burial place. However, the restoration has not taken place up to now (2015) for thesimple reason that there has not been an agreement
between the experts and the traditional managers.
And at times you begin to wonder who should have
− 50 −

(Session 2)

Fig.1: Kuomboka Ceremony–the village on the movea say here, because the community has been looking after this place for many years.
Another place, another crisis. This time, civil crisis in Mali. We all were taken aback when we hadthat war, which affected the Timbuktu World Heritage site. This was a site renowned for its traditional
system in terms of building the tombs, but at thesame time, there had been a controversy. Before
this civil strife the South African government hadbuilt a library to house the manuscripts. However,for many year this building (library) was condemned by the World Heritage Committee. In fact,
at one time, the decision was to destroy it because it
was not compatible with the World Heritage site.
However, at the same time when the war started,
this is the building which provided protection to themanuscripts. This at times indicates the lack of coordination within UNESCO and other organizations.
But perhaps more importantly, the manuscripts
were saved by the fact that the majority actually reside with families. The destruction was partly on
the library and the Mosque. Most of the manuscripts were with family members. Traditionally,
they have always keep them, they have made copies, even some of the copies which have been destroyed in the library you could find with families.
However, here was a situation where traditional systems could have helped, because if we had continued reinforcing the fact that families could keepthese books, perhaps there would not even be atarget for the rebels. What I am advocating is notthat we abandon modern systems, but that we pay
attention to traditional systems and practices.
The question of different perspectives to disaster is illustrated by the Kuomboka ceremony inZambia. Every 3 to 4 years, it is well known that theZambezi River will flood. There are more than 20− 51 −

tribal groups who live along the Zambezi Valley, but
only one tribe has turned the disaster into something much more colorful, and perhaps turned adisaster into a new heritage. This is the Lozi group,
which came into the Zambezi valley in the 1800s,
later than all the other groups. They have turned
the floods into a cultural activity. They have built asummer village on high ground and then anothervillage in the low ground. Once the Zambezi starts
flooding they will then begin to move to the highground areas through a colorful ceremony. The ceremony moves the whole village on the river with all
their livestock and everything. The livestock are
saved and the village or the tribe survives.
It can therefore be argued that different cultures
perceive disaster mitigation in different ways. Given the colorful ceremony it even now attracts alarge number of tourist who visit the Victoria Falls
site. As a result the ceremony has now been turned
into an annual event.
At times the definition of what is heritage andwhat is protected differs between experts and communities. This is illustrated by the Site of Domboshava in Zimbabwe. The site is a national monument due it its rock art, which is important to thearchaeologists. But the caves are also a rain-making
center for the communities. The legal instruments
in Zimbabwe only protect the archaeological remains and not the rituals. This led to a conflict
which resulted in the community destroying therock art because they were being prevented fromcarrying out ritual activities there. What was forgotten by the legal instrument was the fact that thecommunity had been practicing this ritual for many
years without necessarily affecting the art. In thiscase, traditions look at the totality of the heritage,
but we as experts look at one aspect of it. It is important to learn from traditions and try to ensurethat we incorporate them in our efforts to protect
the heritage.
In most African countries traditions are verystrong, and they respond to social, economic andpolitical issues much faster than our legal instruments. In managing heritage sites we should notseparate the way people regard and value the place.
We should incorporate the voices from the communities and their traditional language systems, andalso then infuse them with a modern system. We
need to create a dialogue rather than parachute solutions and impose certain systems without understanding what the local communities are actually
doing.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Presentation (2-3)
Traditional is Modern:
Traditional Building Technology for Resilience in the Modern Era
Randolph Langenbach
International Conservattion Consultant
Senior Analyst (retired) of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
www.conservationtech.com
Photos, except as marked, © by the author

It is a pleasure and honor to come back to Japan, toparticipate in this world conference in a place ofrich culture and cultural heritage. I am going to dosomething a little different – I am going to try to get
you to see buildings in a slightly different way. Thismeans all buildings – modern buildings, old buildings, historical buildings – because what I am goingto talk about is what the local people have taught
me in different parts of the world. What has been
revealed to me has often shattered the conventional
wisdom about earthquake resistant design, and inparticular, the expectation of vulnerability of certain
masonry buildings and even of buildings constructed of mud.
Last year, when consulting for the European project called the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) on
the development of a ‘taxonomy’ to be used to evaluate buildings for their risk of collapse in earthquakes, I was told:
The GEM taxonomy should be able to distinguish differences in seismic performance between different building types, ranging from thehighly vulnerable stone masonry buildings tomodern buildings designed in compliance withthe latest building codes.
It is difficult for anyone to argue with this state-ment. Nonetheless, how is one to reconcile it withwhat is seen in the view in Fig. 1 of Gölcük in Turkey after the 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake?
The mosque that is entirely intact, including its
tall minaret, is unreinforced stone masonry. All of
the collapsed buildings surrounding it were of reinforced concrete (RC), like the one barely still standing. These at least should have conformed to theTurkish building code.
But then, even when confronted with this particular scene, wouldn’t it be safe to say that, in general a minaret and a mosque as a whole would beless likely to collapse if made of RC? Then how does
one cope with the scene in Fig. 2, or the view of its
collapsed RC minaret visible at the link in footnote
no. 1?

Fig.2: Mosque in Adapazari, Turkey, 1999

Fig.1: Gölcük, Turkey after the 1999 Kocaeli earthquake (APphoto by Enric Marti (NY Times, Aug.20, 1999)

Not only is the minaret down but the mosque isdown as well, in spite of the fact that Turkey has
modern building codes for RC construction. To
avoid relying only on the selection of pictures tomake the point, I turn to a team of Turkish engineers who did a quantitative study of every single
building in a sample of damaged areas to analyze
the damage by building type (Fig. 3). The whitebars are the reinforced concrete frame buildings.
All of those of traditional construction, including
unreinforced masonry, are the darker bars.
− 52 −

(Session 2)

Fig.3: Gulhan and Guney, 20002

To avoid giving the impression that I believe thatall RC frame buildings are bad, I mention the widely
circulated photo taken after the 2011 earthquake
and tsunami in Tōhoku, Japan, of a building with alarge cruise ship on its roof. I am sure nowhere in
the building code is there a requirement that abuilding should be able to hold such a large boat on
its roof after enduring a tsunami wave3. Only reinforced concrete would survive such a profound
event.
Okay, now let us make it easier – how about abuilding constructed entirely of mud in a large
earthquake such as the one that struck the Iraniancity of Bam? In that city, the Arg-e-Bam, a world famous archeological site, has been described as theworld’s largest single interconnected earthen structure. A leading Iranian engineer told me that, because of its collapse, there was a proposal to ban all
new earthen constructions in the country.
When I got to Bam and started examining thesite four months after the earthquake, things got
interesting in unexpected ways. All the parts of theconstruction that had not been restored in the 20th
century were still standing. They were ruins, ofcourse, because they had been abandoned withoutmaintenance for almost 200 years, but it was easy to
distinguish between the decay over time and thedamage from the 2003 earthquake by looking for
fresh rubble on the ground.
Looking further, I found that only the restored
parts were completely infested with termites. Thus,
I could see that we were no longer dealing with thesimplistic question of whether unfired clay is vulnerable. Instead, the differences proved that thecollapses were a product of the loss of cohesion of
the clay itself. In addition, the 20th century restorations had overloaded the much weaker archaeological remains, which as a result were crushed during
the earthquake.4
Turning now from Iran to Haiti: Haiti was devastated by an earthquake in 2010. Soon after thequake, the numbers of people reported to havebeen crushed in collapsing buildings rose quickly
to more than a quarter of a million. The iconic images in Haiti were of the National Palace and theCathedral (Fig. 5-left), both of which had collapsed.
However, I am sure that few of you have seen
photos of the Chapel of St. Louis de Gonzague on
the right of Fig. 5, standing as if nothing had happened. It is almost as big as the Cathedral used tobe. It never shut down. Services continue there to
this day. Its structure is a framework of steel orwrought iron imported from France at the end of
the 19th century which embraces and reinforces
walls of masonry panels.
The Palace and the Cathedral were constructedof reinforced concrete, and both were about a century old. The reason why they fell down is not be-

Fig.4: Arg-e-Bam, before and after the 2003 earthquake (left photo courtesy of Kerman Province)− 53 −

Tokyo Strategy MeetingFig.5: Cathedral (l) and St. Louis de Gonzague Chapel (r) after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti

cause of bad construction, but because the rebars
had rusted away. So we are now dealing with a modern material, RC, embraced around the world
where its lifespan is based on a ferrous metal – steel– embedded into the core of the walls and columns.
Now, why don’t we make our expectation of collapse even easier still by going to a Haitian slum settlement where one can reasonably expect to findpoorly made buildings which in no way can be expected to be code-conforming, even if Haiti had possessed a building code, which it does not? Since thefirst news reports after the earthquake showedbodies of United States and United Nations officials,
including the leader of the UN mission, being removed from the pancake-collapsed 5-star hotels
that were even further from the epicenter thanPort-au-Prince, then expecting to find masses of fatalities in the concrete and masonry slum settlements would not at all seem unreasonable. In fact,
news photographs showed many scenes wherethese houses had cascaded down the hillsides.
Even to this day, the death toll often cited is aquarter of a million or more casualties, but this may
have been a result of the quick estimate by a forensics engineering firm, RMS (Risk Management Solutions) Corp. (www.rms.com) of that number only
5 days after the earthquake. As explained to me, thereason for their early estimate was in part that when
they saw that the Hotel Montana was down, they
assumed that everything else went down too.
When some months later ICOMOS was given access to an aerial survey of the entire damaged district by Pictometry International Corp, I found thatexcept on steep sites, the scene was consistently
like that shown (Fig. 6-top). The steep site collapses

can be explained by the fact that poor people do notbuild retaining walls. On less steep slopes, most of
the slum houses survived. This was true despite
their being of bad construction done by untrained
people.
Adding to the contrast with conventional wisdom
is that the upper-class houses shown (Fig. 6-bottom) have collapsed, while the massive unrein-

Fig.6: Pictometry Int’l Corp photos of slum settlement (bidonville), and (bottom) upper-class houses, after the 2010 earthquake− 54 −

(Session 2)

forced masonry, late-19th-century “Gingerbread”
house, now the Hotel Oloffson, suffered so little
damage that it never closed (see endnote 5). Less
than a stone’s throw behind that hotel was anotherhotel, an 8-story RC building that completely pancaked.
Moving to even more vulnerable buildings, nobody would claim that river-rock rubble stone is aClass A seismic area building material, yet a number of such buildings, well over 100 years old withlittle maintenance, have survived, even though insome cases the rubble stone panels have partiallycollapsed. One such building, the Villa Castel Feuri,
featured on the cover of the World Monuments
Fund published book Preserving Haiti’s Gingerbread Houses,6 once a presidential palace, has only askin of fired brick while much of the rest of thewalls are of rubble stone. It is still standing, while amodern reinforced concrete house that the ownerbuilt for herself almost a century later in the backgarden of the Villa collapsed completely. The onlysaving grace was that she had died 2 years before
the earthquake, or she would have been crushed by
the collapsed concrete roof.
So, I have shown one counterintuitive observation after another. One of the reasons why I got into
this subject is that, when I moved to California, theonly way to really put my arms around the issue ofseismic rules for historical buildings which required their demolition or heavy reconstruction
was to understand their behavior in earthquakes.
Little did I expect to discover that they would fre-quently be found, not only to survive earthquakes,
but actually to do better than the modern buildingsin the many earthquakes that have occurred overthe 3 decades since my move to a seismically activearea.
I now take you to what started me on this wholeproject – the discovery of this traditional construction in the area of northern India known as Kashmir. What I found there was almost like a mediaevalcity of leaning and tipping buildings of different
types of construction. My research began because I
wanted to understand what they were and why they
were like this. What I learned is that there are two
types of traditional masonry construction in Srinagar. One is known in as dhajji dewari, ancient Persian for “patchquilt wall” (visible in the center ofFig. 7-left). The other is known as taq in Kashmiri,(Fig. 7-middle). Both evolved primarily in responseto the fact that they are on one of the softest soil
sites on which a major capital city is built.7
I then found reports in the British Library thattalked about it in the 19th century, with quotes suchas this:The city of Srinagar looks tumbledown and dilapidated…but the general construction in thecity of Srinagar is suitable for an earthquake
country; wood is freely used, and well jointed;
clay is employed instead of mortar, and gives asomewhat elastic bonding to the bricks....If wellbuilt in this style the whole house, even if three orfour storeys high, sways together, whereas moreheavy rigid buildings would split and fall. 8

Fig.7: Srinagar, Kashmir (l & m). Kathmandu (r)− 55 −

Tokyo Strategy MeetingFig.8: Hımış next to collapsed RC (by ©Adem Doğangün)(l), and new hımış house in Duzce (r)As counterintuitive as to say that it is better tofind the use of “clay is employed instead of [lime]
mortar…” because it gives a “somewhat elastic
bonding to the bricks…” these buildings have actually proven to be earthquake resistant because of
the timbers in the walls which hold them together.
We can compare them to examples in nearby Nepal
in Fig. 7-right, photographed before the 2015 earthquakes, which lack the timber ring beams, a shortcoming that became manifest when only a monthafter the WCDRR, two earthquakes struck Nepal.
The first test of the findings from my research
was in Turkey, after the large earthquakes in 1999.
There, I was able to witness the timber and masonry hımış construction next to RC frame construction (as seen in Fig. 8-left).
I even found one family where, at the time of theearthquake, the husband was building a new building out of RC. When he saw the collapsed RC framebuildings compared to the almost no damage to thehımş house which his father had built, he stopped
and started over with the traditional hımş construction (seen in Fig. 8-right).
The 2005 Kashmir earthquake was the next
earthquake to test these kinds of buildings. It mainly struck the Pakistan side of the border. 80,000
people died in northern Pakistan, including downtown Islamabad. In one of the towns to which I was
taken to by my colleagues, Maggie Stephenson of
the UN-Habitat and Tom Schacher of SDC, rubble
stone houses had fallen, but the local residents
could see that the one building that had survived
was of dhajji construction. As a result, the people ofthis town, contrary to the government’s early edictsaying they had to use reinforced concrete or con-crete block, proceeded to build dhajji houses (Fig.
9-left). New post-earthquake stone construction
with timber ring beams, is called in Pakistan bhatar(Fig. 9-right).
A year after the earthquake, the government ofPakistan was persuaded (in part by my colleagues
listed above) to approve dhajji, and the following
year bhatar. Now, a decade later, there may be as
many as quarter-of-a-million new houses constructed in these traditional forms of construction
throughout northern Pakistan. 9Conclusion:
So how can the traditional ways of construction
here inform us of how to fix the modern buildings
from collapse? We are no longer just talking about
how to protect heritage here. In the process of understanding heritage, I have discovered ideas
which potentially are of great pertinence today.
This also can change the argument over whether ahistoric building can be saved when instead of presenting as a risk, it can be shown in fact to be safer
than newer buildings of RC nearby.
At this point, in my WCDRR Keynote, I described
the transformation of engineering design of buildings in the modern era to an emphasis and focus on
structural frames−braced frames and moment
frames−leading up to the invention and proliferation of ‘skyscrapers.’ This has left behind what had
been for thousands of years an emphasis on masonry construction with timber floors and roofs, fromsmall houses to massive structures, from Hagia Sophia in Istanbul to St. Peters in Rome. These arewhat I call by comparison to frames, ‘solid wall’buildings of mud, stone or brick.
− 56 −

(Session 2)

Fig.9: New dhajji house (l) and bhatar houses in rural Pakistan after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake

When it comes to earthquakes, the frame structures have had a mixed history−from extraordinary resilience to catastrophic collapse. The point
to be made here is not to say that masonry buildings have now proven to be better than referenced
in the quote by GEM at the beginning of this talk, orthat the examples of modern building collapses are
all explained because they failed to be in conformance to the building codes. The recent earthquakes
in Nepal that have occurred subsequent to the presentation of this address in Japan, certainly has
shown a preponderance of examples of failure ofmasonry buildings, while many concrete buildings
have done better.
The point is actually much more basic, and yettimeless. It is that the art of building in general for acommunity, society, and nation as a whole most importantly must focus not on what is possible, butwhat is probable.
If one focuses on this basic philosophical point,
one inevitably must come to the conclusion thatalongside of the understanding and further research on structural design of frames, solid wallbuildings need to be understood as well. This is because they most often are the technology and materials that ordinary people have affordable access to.
A good example of this difference is demonstrated
by the fact that the sections of the Indian and the
Nepal National Building Codes that deal with nonengineered construction are specific only to timberand masonry construction of stone, brick or unfired
clay. They definitively do not include RC moment
frames.
In Haiti, it is the solid walls of masonry that kept
the still standing slum settlements from collapsing− 57 −

while almost half of the contractor-built concrete
frame structures in Port-au-Prince collapsed bothfrom poor construction and environmental decay. It
was in fact the infill masonry that actually was responsible for the survival of the first generation
skyscrapers in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake, rather than their frames alone. It was thetimber-laced and infill masonry that kept houses
standing, both in 1999 in Turkey, in 2001 in Gujarat,
India, and in 2005 in both in India and Pakistan,
while scores of modern concrete buildings crumbled.
It is from these examples that the concept of “Armature Crosswalls” was proposed and described at
the WCDRR (illustrated in Fig. 10). The principle isto replace the usually stiff but brittle infill masonrywalls in modern concrete moment frame construction with a sub-frame with smaller more flexible masonry panels that can give in an earthquake without
collapsing, providing the kind of friction and ductile
behavior that can contribute to preventing the RC
frame from collapsing.10
In closing, I want to give homage to concrete
where it is due. Here shown in Figure 11 is a building shown in a drawing by the 18th century Italianartist Piranesi combined with a photo of it taken by
me only a decade ago.
It is 2000 years old, and it has probably not seen
any maintenance for probably 1800 of those 2000
years. This roof is of concrete – unreinforced concrete! It gives real pause to look at this example andthink about buildings, and about what we can learn
from what people have done in the past. Thank you.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

(A)

(B)

(C)

(D)

Fig.10: Brittle infill walls (the photo A and the drawing C) compared with traditional hımış (the photo B) and with proposed “Armature Crosswall” (the drawing D)− 58 −

(Session 2)

1	Collapsed minaret and mosque in Sakaria, Turkey, 1999
http://www.epa.eu/disasters-photos/earthquake-photos/turkey-earthquake-collapsed-mosque-photos-99450569

5	See http://www.conservationtech.com/haiti.html for link tofree PDF. Page 48.
62	Gülhan, Demet, and İnci Özyörük Güney(2000) “The Behaviour of Traditional Building Systems against Earthquake and
Its Comparison to Reinforced Concrete Frame Systems,” Conference Proceedings for Earthquake-Safe: an International Conference on the Seismic Performance of Traditional Buildings.
Istanbul, Turkey, 2000. (http://www.icomos.org/iiwc/seismic/Gulhan.pdf)
3	See photo at https://www.pinterest.com/pin/284852745157800104/
or Google search string: “tsunami tohoku japan boat on roof”
4	
For more information, see : 2004 “Soil Dynamics and theEarthquake Destruction of the Arg-e Bam,” Iranian Journal of
Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, Tehran, Iran, Special
Issue on 26 December 2003 Bam Earthquake, 2004, Volume
5:#4 & Volume 6:#1. (www.conservationtech.com) .

IBID, Cover + pages 29 and 64.

7	For a detailed description of the subject of Kashmir, please see
the book by Langenbach, Don’t Tear It Down! Preserving the
Earthquake Resistant Vernacular Architecture of Kashmir, published by UNESCO, 2009. (www.traditional-is-modern.net)
8	Arthur Neve, Thirty Years in Kashmir, E. Arnold, London,
1913.
9	See World Disaster Report 2014, Int’l Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Chapter 5. (http://www.ifrc.org/world-disasters-report-2014).
10	See http://www.conservationtech.com/armaturecrosswalls.html

Fig.11: Grandi Terme in Hadrian’s villa, near Rome, Italy, with engraving by Piranesi, ca. 1750

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Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Presentation (2-4)
Local Disaster Risk Reduction Activities Based on Integrated Heritage Conservation
Akira Tanaka
Municipal History Compiling Officer,
Education Board of Takayama City, Japan

I would like to give a brief explanation regarding
the disaster risk reduction (DRR) activities being
undertaken by Takayama City in Gifu Prefecture.
Historically, Takayama was a castle town. In the olddays, the castle was located here. Next to where it
was, we still have a district of the modern city where
remnants of the old townscape are preserved (Fig.
1). Talking about the Takayama “self-defense firebrigades” that contribute to DRR, what distinguishes them is that they are based upon the old “float
teams” that were created by the various local communities who retained festival floats within the castle town. In other words, the basis of the modern
self-defense fire brigades are social units that were
initially established some 400 years ago. Back then,each of these social units retained a festival float,
and over time teams were created to maintain andoperate them during festivals. The people involvedin these teams were the ones who created the citizens’ group to preserve the historic townscape of
Takayama. Furthermore, following on from this, it
was also these citizen preservationists who played aleading role in the development of the modern selfdefense fire brigades.
In 1996, we unfortunately experienced a major
fire in the city. In the district where the remnants of
the old townscape are preserved, there was a significant blaze that engulfed five buildings and cov-

ered an area of approximately 2000 square meters.
When this occurred, the self-defense fire brigades
were put to work. The Takayama City Fire Department was immediately notified when the fire wasdiscovered, and it was members of the townscapepreservation association who both initially noticed
the flames and then raised the alarm. Given thecity's geography, it would take about eight minutes
for fire engines from the city fire department toreach the scene. In other words, it would take eightminutes for help to arrive. Not disheartened, unitsof the self-defense fire brigades swung immediately
into action. Although they could only access smallvolume fire hydrants, they nevertheless commenced fighting the blaze. Soon after, units fromthe city fire department arrived at the scene. Subsequently, self-defense fire brigade units, units fromthe city fire department and firefighting units fromprivate organizations cooperated in battling theblaze. In total, some 540 people were to play a partin fighting the fire. It ended up taking approximately five hours to completely extinguish the blaze(Fig. 2).
Next, I would like to talk about the city's traditional earthen fireproof storehouses and its watersupplies for fighting fires. In Takayama’s case, as a
response to the risk of fire, for perhaps the last 300
to 400 years, a great emphasis has been placed on

Fig.1: The historic center of Takayama City

Fig.2: Self-defense fire brigade units in action− 60 −

(Session 2)

both the building of traditional earthen fireproof
storehouses and the setting aside of sufficient watersupplies. Historically speaking, to ensure that conflagrations would not leap from one district to another, and that any fire did not spread, rows of traditional earthen fireproof storehouses were built
within the castle town. In contemporary times, generous subsidies have been given by Takayama City
Hall to repair these cultural assets. Concerning a
blaze that broke out in the city in 2008, under normal circumstances it might well have been expected that the building that housed one of our very
precious festival floats would have burnt to theground. However, because the building in question
was a traditional earthen fireproof storehouse thatwas impervious to fire, the festival float stored inside was rescued unharmed. If, for argument's
sake, the festival float in question had been destroyed, it would have taken roughly ¥400 to ¥500
million to faithfully recreate. However, the traditional warehouse was able to prevent this from happening (Fig. 3).

Fig.3: Yataigura, a traditional earthen fireproof warehouse

I would now like to discuss Takayama’s networkof canals. Again, these canals have been developed
over roughly the last 300 years in response to therisk posed by fire. Water constantly flows throughthis network. Of course, when fire occurs in thecity, water can be drawn from the canals and put togood use. Furthermore, in that Takayama has anabundant snowfall during the winter months, snowbanks can be deposited in the canals so that they
can be melted and carried off. Large volumes ofsnow also build up on the roofs of buildings, and if
earthquakes were to occur, there is the risk of such
structures collapsing under the weight of the accu− 61 −mulated snow. Thus, with the canals, there is theopportunity to quickly remove such accumulations
and get them melted and carried off. This is another role that the canals fulfill (Fig. 4).

Fig.4: Takayama’s network of canals

The next topic I would like to mention is how wehave deployed our firefighting equipment. In thewake of the major fire that I alluded to earlier, welearned a great many things. For example, we considered what sort of firefighting equipment best
suited our needs. On this topic alone, the city’s
stakeholders gathered together on 20 or 30 occasions to debate and discuss matters. The outcomeof these discussions was the decision to focus such
equipment in one location. Infrastructure was developed, its placement was both keeping with thescenic environment and was not overly prominent.
With our equipment, there are no keys needed foraccess. However, measures have been put in place
to make sure that members of the public do not access it.
Fire hydrants, that are usually accessed by professional firefighters when preparing to fight fires,
have connection couplings for the hoses that are 65
millimeters in diameter. As such, it is not possible tohandle the hydrants unless there are two firefighters at hand. Insted, we use 50 millimeter couplings,
which a single member of the city’s self-defense firebrigades can handle and connect to a hydrant. Prior
to the large fire that I described earlier, we only had
two of these positioned in the vicinity. When theblaze broke out, an attempt to extinguish it wasmade by joining just these two hoses together, but
the combined length was insufficient. We have now
added another three hoses for a total of five in thevicinity. When joined together, we can now get wa-

Tokyo Strategy Meetingter from a hydrant to locations approximately 100
meters away. Moreover, with 100 meters of hose toplay with, the equipment can now be carried onto
the roofs of buildings. Thus, we are making use ofwhat we have learned through past fires (Fig. 5).

Fig.6: Self-defense fire brigade in action wearing traditional clothing, sashiko

Fig.5: Fire hydrant tools (right side of the photo)

Our self-defense fire brigades carry out this sortof training once a year. Members of our self-defense
fire brigades also make traditional clothing that iscalled sashiko. When water is applied to it, it becomes fireproof. With regard to this sashiko clothing, each of the old float teams boasts a different
design. As such, when carrying about the festival
floats that I mentioned earlier, historically each of
the float teams used to wear a different design ofsashiko. These traditions were then carried overwhen each team subsequently established theirown self-defense fire brigade (Fig. 6).
In the wake of the major fire, we have placed our
greatest focus on the installation of automatic fire
alarms. In doing so, we have connected together
batches of five to eight buildings into groups. Thus,
if a blaze were to break out in one of these, thealarms installed in the other seven would give notification as to the possibility of fire having broken
out nearby. By having people then go and check thesituation, we can achieve mutual surveillance. Accordingly, throughout the townscape we are installing automatic fire alarms by adopting a system ofgroup monitoring (Fig. 7). Although we initiallygave up on the idea of installing automatic fire
alarms on rank-and-file wooden buildings, we were
fortunate enough to receive some technical assistance. This has resulted in installation being possible throughout the city. Since these installations, wehave actually discovered approximately three fires

before they could take hold. One such incident involved an elderly person cooking tempura and thenforgetting to turn off the heat. This resulted in theoil in the cooking pot erupting in flame. A neighbor
heard the fire alarm and rushed next door. Such an
incident demonstrates how fires can happen and be
prevented.
Finally, I would like to discuss the issue of maintaining the city's fire-prevention systems and promulgating them more widely. There is a lot I could
mention. However, first it is important to recognizethat Takayama learned a lot from the big fire of
1996. As to what was done poorly, the doors of two
traditional earthen fireproof storehouses were left
open, and this resulted in their loss. They wereburnt out completely. Thus, from a functional perspective, when owning a traditional earthen fireproof storehouse, the basic premise is not to forgetto keep the doors closed. This was another insightthat was shared with the self-defense fire brigades.
Meetings were held together with them, and thesituation was reflected upon. The skills of the selfdefense fire brigades were used after the blaze.
When it actually occurred, two brigades rushed tothe scene. The one responsible for the immediatearea quickly opened its hydrants and made themready for use. Meanwhile, the neighboring unit
used a pump on their engine to direct water on thefire. Thus, for the eight minutes before support
from the city’s fire department arrived, both ofthese self-defense fire brigades tried their hardest.
Additionally, as part of the recovery efforts after thedisaster, people involved in the self-defense fire brigades and the townscape preservation association
joined together to prepare a DRR plan. These efforts resulted in the development of a fire-prevention system of which the nation can be proud.
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(Session 2)

A great variety of activities were subsequently
undertaken, and one that was particularly unsuccessful was the application of fire-resistant paints.
As is readily understood, wooden facings are ahighly flammable material. Thus, a number of trials
were conducted to see if they could be made impervious to fire through the application of paints. However, these trials did not go well, so measures were
undertaken to see if the wooden facings could beoverlaid with steel ones. In other words, everythingthat could be done has been done.

Fig.7: Group monitor; When a sensor works at House A, alarms
are activated at House A, B and C.

Going forward, memories of the major fire that
occurred in 1996 are dimming with the passage oftime. So as to connect what was learned to the next
generation of people, there need to be occasions
and forums where people can gather and discuss
things. In light of this, at the townscape preservation association, a range of activities are being undertaken. With the Summer Tanabata Festival andthe Takayama Festival held in April, there are occasions when everybody can gather together. Whenthese events occur, it is important to remember thata long time ago there was a large fire that broke out
in Takayama. It is on such occasions that a drink
may be shared among participants while discussing
whether a suitable amount of care is being taken,
and while talking about issues such as DRR. It isnecessary that such a long-term approach is adopted.

− 63 −

Finally, what is most important is the necessityof developing future leaders and people who can advise on such issues. From a systems perspective,
our city has been fortunate in having received muchassistance from the Agency for Cultural Affairs withrespect to DRR equipment and the repair of our traditional earthen fireproof storehouses. However,for what reason is Takayama seeking to preserve its
townscape? If people do not understand why, they
will not apply themselves to the task. Systematicallyspeaking, the argument is that through the systemization of DRR procedures and by technical means,fire can be prevented. Beyond this, however, in order to create within people a strong desire to protect Takayama’s townscape, it is also necessary that
opportunities to learn about the city’s history andculture are offered. As such, we are actively conducting a range of study meetings.
That ends my presentation on the DRR measures being taken with respect to Takayama's townscape. Thank you very much for your attention.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Roundtable Discussion[Facilitators]
Timothy Curtis, Takeyuki Okubo

Jeremy Barns (National Museum of the Philippines):
Thank you. I’m here to share our experience of
the National Museum of the Philippines, which isthe agency of the national government that’s taken
the lead in the rehabilitation recovery, restoration,and reconstruction of many cultural properties
damaged by recent natural disasters.
Today I will talk about the Typhoon Haiyan,
which happened on November 8, 2013, one monthafter the Bohol earthquake. This typhoon is being
held up as an event linked to climate change. Locally known as Yolanda, it ripped right through thecentral Philippines, and was one of the strongest
tropical cyclones ever recorded, reaching over 300
kilometers per hour in terms of sustained winds,
and it was the deadliest Philippines typhoon on record—and our records stretch back to the 18th century—killing around 6300 people.
It affected a dozen provinces throughout the islands, but despite the general devastation, only one
cultural property of maximum national importancewas devastated. It was the 18th century churchcomplex in Guiuan, Eastern Samar. After the disaster, this site was assigned to the National Museum
for appropriate recovery action.
The church is a beautiful example of Philippine
baroque of the 18th century, with many 19th-century elements. The site was considered to be listed ina UNESCO World Heritage Site of Baroque Churches of the Philippines. This church features many
chapels and a fine altarpiece from the 18th century,
carved under the Jesuit order. But what made thischurch especially significant was the shell ornamentation, which is completely unique to the Philippines. The National Museum has been supportingthe conservation of this church over the last decades. Unfortunately, this disaster occurred and we
had to rethink our conservation plans.
After the Typhoon passed the coastal town, asmall fishing village, a very picturesque area, wascompletely devastated. From the army helicopter
we could see that the church was completely wipedout by the strong winds. So what could we do after

such an event? The remoteness of the location wasa formidable barrier. And of course, the first response was focused on humanitarian aid, and you
can imagine that we weren’t given much priority.
Finally, we managed to obtain one seat on theplane from some of the private relief organizations.
So, I sent our Chief Conservator to check out thedamage condition of the church. We understoodfrom his photographs that the facade had fallen in,
the roof blew off, and some of the walls collapsed.
Because of the debris, it was difficult for him to get
inside. In the interior, although the panels of thepainted ceiling and the altar had collapsed, thankfully, the side chapels with the shell ornamentation
had survived. The surroundings of the church were
flooded, including the residence of the parish priest.
The Typhoon happened on November 8th. The
next opportunity for us to go there only came aboutat the end of January, when a mining company invited me to go with them to see the affected communities. Of course, they had their mining interest
too. We talked about whether we would accept any
help from this mining company. They could offer us
the logistics to set up mobile storage, mobile offices, and conservation labs to help start the recovery
and also provide key equipment. However, eventhough it was funneled indirectly through the museum, because of the poor track record of mining in
the Philippines, the local community had vetoed
this offer. As a result, our efforts to recover the cultural properties were delayed even further.
You might have seen from footage of relief efforts from many countries that it takes many
months to recover a semblance of normalcy. It was
4 months after the event that we could go to the site.
That means that the cultural properties were left
exposed during that period. We could only commence the work systematically 7 months after the
event.
All of these priceless artistic treasures, culturaland sacred treasures were left exposed, except for
those that the priest and his colleagues managed toretrieve to safety. Once we got the work started, wemanaged to carry it out fairly quickly. However, that− 64 −

(Session 2)

was just the emergency recovery and salvage. Of
course, the major conservation work, structural
studies, restoration, and reconstruction program
are still underway.
It was very difficult for National Museum personnel from Manila to bring the whole team out
there, so we had to hire people on the ground andprovide them with adequate payment. They started
under the supervision of three museum workers.
The clearing efforts were made manually over a period of 2 weeks because there was no equipmentthat could enter the site.
For the clearing of the rubble, we deployed ourarchaeologists to the site and they managed it as anarchaeological site. There was very careful recording of the original location of each stone in thewalls. Slowly, over this 2-week period, we managed
to salvage all of the fallen objects, including movable images. Finally, we had the structural engineers
to go inside and make the survey, so that we could
understand the condition of the structure.
While this was all ongoing, the community built
a temporary church. Religion plays a very important role in this very devout community, and having
a church building was very important for them.
Just 2 weeks ago the [French] President François Hollande gave a speech at the National Museum in Manila in preparation for the Climate Change
Summit, which will be held in Paris later this year.
Then, he travelled to Guiuan to see the recovery of
the town and he even made a statement that all of
his efforts on tackling the climate change issues
would be done in the name of this small town. He
inspected our church and we talked him throughour plans for its eventual restoration. And I also
have to acknowledge the support of the US government, which has liberally provided the funding forthe restoration of this church through the ambassador’s cultural heritage fund. Thank you.
Takeyuki Okubo:
Thank you. It is almost 14:56, when we would like totake 1 minute of silence to remember the victims ofthe 2011 tsunami in Japan, which was exactly 4
years ago. [Silence.]
Alissandra Cummins (Barbados Museum andHistorical Society):
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. In a Caribbean setting, subject to many disasters, there is a
simple traditional way to encapsulate the phenomenon, which is not easily understood, such as “the− 65 −

devil beating his wife with a cou cou stick.” It signifies a condition of both sun (the heat of the devil’s
anger) and the rain (the wife’s tears) occurring simultaneously, and is easily extrapolated into a severe disaster being interpreted as a punishment resulting from God’s wrath.
Even earlier, Pre-Columbian Caribbean peoples
introduced a key concept in its contribution to global communication, which we today consider to befundamental to our shared knowledge, which has
resonated through millennia. Alongside the hammock, barbecue and savannah, the Caribbean Taino
also conceptualized, constructed, and contributed
words such as canoe and, of course, hurricane, thelatter of which is central to Caribbean mindsets today and in the past.
In 1955, the Hurricane Janet destroyed so muchof the Barbados island’s infrastructure that thisevent reverberated for decades after. The transmission of those memories had a complete transformative action upon the capacity of those people to rebuild and reconstruct thereafter. However, today,
after five or six decades, that memory has been
eliminated over time and there is a loss of intergenerational exchange of knowledge and understanding about what that disaster did and how it affected local communities. Failure to acknowledge
the significance of rural disasters hampers the institutional mitigation and management of acceptablerisks within the context of preserving cultural heritage. This is a statement found in your World Disasters Report 2014. http://www.ifrc.org/world-disasters-report-2014
Spirituality and belief systems have had an enormous impact on the means by which local populations either accept fatalistically the results of disasters, or react proactively in recovering from them.
But what I am going to address today are two or
three opportunities where there are means for risk
reduction; but it is the mindset, philosophy, andpsychology of the current situation in the Caribbean that may prevent an effective action along thesefronts.
I want to thank my colleague Akatsuki Takahashi from the UNESCO Apia Office for bringing to
my attention a particular paper by Dr. Simon Hollis
called “Disaster Risk Reduction in the Caribbean:
Opportunities and Challenges for Achieving Greater Resilience.” I appreciate this because due to thetime constrains I cannot cover all elements of the
background but I would recommend this paper
strongly, because it helps to define the parameters

Tokyo Strategy Meetingof our experience.
The Caribbean experience of natural hazards
and disasters has continued to increase over thelast half-century. The intensity and number ofweather-related disasters combined with existingsocial, political and economic vulnerabilities form acomplex arrangement that threatens the livelihoods of individuals and communities.
We, in the Caribbean, share a turbulent and painful past of oppression. Slavery, indentureship, andcolonial rule have applied layers of historical experiences that created difficulties for establishing acommon story and, hence, a cohesive and strong
self-identity. A present-day mixture of beliefs andethnicities, and relatively newly claimed independence—all of these are important features that haveseverely affected the ability of communities toground their customs in a historically defined
script.
As a result, we have something that Dr. Hollis
has identified as a “culture of non-preservation,”
evident from the lack of will for preservation. Why
should we preserve something that has been imposed, that represents a foreign culture, or something that completely lost its significant meaning tolocal populations? The result is a distance between
the communities and the structures that you see ashistorically significant in any of the locales aroundthe region.
The culture of non-preservation not only reflects
this uneasy coupling between the past and the present, but it also limits the depth of vision for the future, and it has a barricade effect impeding the development of resistance and resilience mechanisms
in communities.
As Dr. Hollis points out, power relations are embedded in some cultures, which leads to different
allocations of risks. He also points out that organizations must reflect on their internal culture and how
it interacts with the culture of people they intend tosupport. Now, I just want to raise a couple of points
to show the impact it had on the communities.
We all heard about such thing as “high turnover.” The first thing that happens is the social political system tends to direct investment away from
DRR. The second thing is the prioritization of thelimited resources in other sectors that has resulted
in heavily underfunded and understaffed national
emergency management agencies. If those areheavily underfunded, then you can imagine that themechanisms for resilience and rebirth within thecommunities are equally underfunded and under-

resourced.
I would mention just three steps in terms ofregional systems. When the resources are limited,
we have a situation where some sectors are prioritized over the others (the first step), which has resulted in this kind of high staff turnover (the second step), and had a direct impact on the ability ofthe entities to deliver what they are committed to(the third step). Such mechanisms are often given
low status within all ranks of government, but also
have an impact. There is a tendency to restructure
government sectors after elections, which also creates challenges for establishing a sustainable emergency management system.
Dr. Hollis points out the need for encouraging
intra- and inter-regional cooperation and coordination, and I remind you that this was a significant pillar of the Barbados Program of Action that was also
adopted on Mauritius, and more recently, Samoa.
For us, the Caribbean Tsunami Information
Center as a partnership initiative between the government of Barbados and the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) has
been a critical step forward. Yet, it remains underresourced and is in danger because of the lack offunding to effectively fulfill its goals and strategies,
namely: monitoring and detection, hazard assessment, warning communication, information dissemination activities, preparedness, readiness andresilience. So, there is an opportunity for this kindof resilience based in inter-regional arrangements.
At the national level, I want to raise one pointthat I haven’t heard mentioned today. Let me bringto the table the role of museums and their ability tostimulate activities within the governmental sector,
NGOs, and civil society through their educative
function. Museums are able to target schools andstudents, and to build knowledge, which has now
been, as I said, divested between different generations; to explore science and technology as fun,leading to a comprehension of what happens in adisaster setting.
I will mention the last point I wanted to look at,which is the various aspects of intangible cultural
heritage (ICH) and their change in meaning overthe centuries. Just a few weeks ago, my museum
hosted a special presentation by a visiting professor
called “Landship, Entrepreneurship and the Ship ofState in Barbados: The Many Uses of Heritage in
Barbados.”
Why did we examine that particular element of
ICH? The Barbados Landship is a unique perfor− 66 −(Session 2)

mance tradition, influenced by the British Royal
Navy ships, ranks and uniforms, which began in the
19th century. At least, this is as far back as we candate it. At its peak of popularity, in the early to middle 20th century, it contained thousands of members across numerous ships in the small nation ofBarbados. It was embedded in every village andevery community. Although much reduced in membership, the Landship emerged later on as an emblem of Barbadian culture, and is routinely touted
by governments and state actors as a model of cultural heritage.
But what was interesting was not so much thepresentation itself, but the response of the audience
afterwards. The diverse audience expressed theirviews on why the Landship was in trouble and how
it changed its meaning, because it no longer possessed the mutual support system that had tied it
into the community.
It now functions only as a very artificial performance. The underpinnings that gave it meaning
and credibility within the society have disappeared
over time in a postcolonial and post-independentsetting, and the Landship has lost its authority andpotency within the island’s community. Societal
transformations towards a formal banking systemand centralized administration have left the Landship solely its performance function.
What occurred to me was that here was an indigenous ethnic form of social resilience in search of a
new relevance. Why not explore the Landship andits capacity to generate support and belief in society
and to aid resilience and risk reduction within thecommunities? With a renewed vision, we could see
the Landship “sailing the seas” again.
Thank you very much for your attention today.
Yuji Hasemi (Waseda University):
Recently, not just in Japan but in other places as
well, we have seen the occurrence of large-scaledisasters. I feel that a topic that has been raised inthis conference is the limitations of modern disaster-prevention technologies. On this occasion, however, we need to stress the necessity of the functionality of modern disaster-prevention technologies,
even though disasters do not occur frequently. The
disaster-prevention equipment possesses what may
be called a “serviceable life”; however, the frequency of disaster occurrence may exceed this “serviceable life.” It is an extremely difficult issue to maintain their appropriate functionality.
Japan is a country prone to disasters such as ty− 67 −phoons and earthquakes. Within the country, there
are also regions that have not been damaged by significant disasters for hundreds of years. These historic regions, in my view, may have overcome some
limitations of modern disaster-prevention technologies.
We were fortunate enough to have Akira Tanaka
introduce a range of examples from Takayama City
in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. Among the examples
given, there were traditional events such as shrine
festivals as well as numerous local activities linked
to disaster prevention. While I have also been involved in the work of Takayama, I would like to takethis opportunity to convey a slightly different case.
Located at the most-westerly tip of Honshu (Japan’s main island) in Yamaguchi Prefecture, wehave the community of Sasanami-ichi in Hagi City.
Recently, this area was selected as an Important
Preservation District for Groups of Traditional
Buildings, which is a historic district of national significance in Japan. Sasanami-ichi is a historical agricultural village that is on the thoroughfare between
the center of Hofu City along the Seto Inland Sea
and the center of Hagi along the Japan Sea. During
the Edo period, the village served as a post town
and stopover point for travelers. The community
settlements are situated along the valley thatstretches east to west. Therefore, to enter, one has
to cross over the mountains either north or south.
The terraced fields along the mountain road createa beautiful and picturesque landscape.
Hofu City, at the southern end of the thoroughfare, is 30 km away from Sasanami-ichi. In the city,in July 2009, an intensive mudslide occurred andregrettably killed 7 people who were in a nursing
home. Looking at the aerial photograph of the affected area before the nursing home was built, we
can tell that the mudslide ran through an existing
mountain stream route with little forestation. The
area can be observed as a land with high potential
risk of landslide. Perhaps somewhere along the line
a decision was made to utilize the land just because
it was open, without investigating why it had remained unused. There have been many similar examples in postwar Japan.
To return to Sasanami-ichi, looking carefully at
the geography surrounding the community, we canrecognize that the area is not so safe. Upstream
from the community, the mountain streams merge
into a river that used to be a swamp and now is afield. The area is easily flooded. Therefore, theplace was not suitable for housing. In short, theTokyo Strategy Meeting

community was created at a site somewhat removed
so as to avoid the impact of flooding.
The paths across the mountain usually follow themountain streams. However, as mudslides may run
through these routes, people avoided building
houses there, developing fields instead. People
tend to build houses on the plains along the valley,
again avoiding places where the streams merge.
One can assume that through these measures, for aperiod of four centuries, the people of Sasanami-ichi
have been able to lead their lives preventing majordisaster damage.
The basic shape of the Sasanami-ichi community
was formed somewhere back in the 17th century;
however, upon entering the 21st century, disastersusceptible land was used just because it was available, resulting in a calamity a few years later. We
need to re-evaluate the technologies that were developed in early-modern times.
Furthermore, another issue that is important toconsider is the beautiful and picturesque landscapecreated by the crooked road that resulted fromthese traditional disaster-prevention measures. One
may think that they build their houses anywhere,
since no disaster damage has occurred for hundreds of years, but that is not the case. The more wefollow the building rules, the safer and prettier thecommunity becomes. This is something that had
been left behind in modern architecture and contemporary urban planning.
On a less fortunate note, even in Sasanami-ichi,
some fields that served for disaster prevention are
beginning to be developed. The reason why historical and cultural heritage has been preserved for
hundreds of years is proof that traditional disasterprevention measures have been effective duringthat time. This is something that needs to be considered with much more care.
In the modern period the concept and circumbstances of cities have also changed greatly. Sasanami-ichi is one case in a rural setting. In historicalurban areas in places like Kyoto, where urban
growth continues to expand, concentrating only on
modern disaster prevention methods does not suffice. That concludes my comments. Thank you verymuch.
Kensaku Kikuchi (Agency for Cultural Affairs,
ACA [retired]):I would now like to offer a little of what has happened concerning folk cultural properties and how
they were damaged in the wake of the Great East

Japan Earthquake (2011). I was the official responsible for these properties at ACA at that time.
The areas severely affected by the Great East
Japan Earthquake included the coastal areas of
Chiba, Ibaraki, Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures,
where a traditional custom known as “hama-ori” (itliterally means “to descend to the beach”) is conducted by many communities. In some locations,hama-ori occurs once annually, while in others it
happens once every couple of years. There is evena case that hama-ori is only done once every 72
years. At such events, the spirit of a deity who resides within a Shinto shrine is transferred to amikoshi (a portable shrine), and then conveyed tothe seaside by groups of worshipers. Seawater isthen drawn from the surf, or the mikoshi is actually
carried into the water. A ceremony then revives thevigor of the ailing deity. These events constitute festivals that involve people coming into close contact
with the sea.
The worshipers who convey the weakened deities to the sea and back to their shrines afterwards
can create rather long processions. Upon reaching
their destination, the worshipers try to draw their
ethereal charges into the sea. The process of purifying the mikoshi with seawater takes place underconditions that involve rather high waves. In these
festivals, matters can be difficult if the beach lacks agentle gradient. As such, locations that have steep
gradients that precipitously drop into deep watercannot readily be used. Accordingly, tradition has
dictated that hama-ori festivals are held on the same
stretches of beach over many years, with worshipers entering the surf at the same point so as todraw seawater. However, due to the damage causedby the earthquake, these same stretches of beachhave been ravaged. Alternatively, those villages thathave played host to such hama-ori traditions havethemselves been devastated. Indeed, with traditions like these, they only truly come into their own
as festivals once both the existence of participating
worshipers and watching spectators is recognized.
In Fukushima’s north on the Pacific side is thecity of Minamisoma. In this area, there is a small
community called Minamiebi. Within this small
community, there are the traditions of shishimai(lion dances) and shishi kagura (sacred dances andmusic), while a hama-ori festival also takes placesomewhere along here. At the same time, there areat least another two shrines from outside the immediate vicinity from where worshipers carry theirmikoshi in order to undertake hama-ori along the− 68 −

(Session 2)

same stretch of beach. However, there is a further
tradition at play here. Namely, if other villages wish
to make use of this bit of the coastline to undertake
their own hama-ori festival, they must be led onto
the beach by the shishi kagura of the Minamiebi
community. Nevertheless, this tradition in itself is
now problematic. This is because of the 70 households that once constituted Minamiebi, 60 were
washed away by the tsunami following the Great
East Japan Earthquake. And what is more, both
equipment and people were also lost. Because ofthis, in addition to the tsunami damage inflicted
upon the Minamiebi community itself, the reality ofsuch a tradition is that the two other villages who
had done hama-ori along the same stretch of coastline can no longer continue the practice. In otherwords, the culture of these other areas that used
this same location is also being interrupted. This
represents another form of damage. In direct terms,
there are festivals and other events that have been
indirectly affected, which are not readily apparent
as damaged intangible cultural properties.
The festival in Miyako City, Iwate Prefecture, isanother form of kagura music called kuromori kagura. Kuromori kagura is performed in January eachyear, its practitioners setting out to perform fromdoor-to-door. One year, its performers will head in asoutherly direction going out of Miyako, while thefollowing year they will head north. Within this tradition, a basic premise is that music will continue tobe played as the performers move in the directionof communities where they will be put up for thenight, then they will continue to tour the area before returning to the city. While through very good
fortune we have been advised that all of the kuromori kagura participants were able to survive unscathed, some of the locations were they might well
be expected to stay overnight have been damaged.
When asked what they would do in light of suchdevelopments, it seems that there is a willingness
among the participants to switch from the traditional southern and northern tour routes along thecoast to trips that would head inland. In otherwords, there is the possibility that the traditional
tour routes will be slightly altered. Concerning intangible cultural properties and in particular folk
cultural properties, it is said to be rather obviousthat traditions can be maintained by making small
adjustments over the long term. Indeed, in that inthis instance changes appear to be already underway and will probably continue in the future, I am
inclined to believe that such a flexible response to− 69 −

the prevailing circumstances shall allow for the impacted festivals and culture to be handed down tofuture generations. Furthermore, I both hope andbelieve that the people of the areas impacted on thisoccasion shall be able to display such flexibility inresponding to the circumstances that have presented themselves.
For this reason, shortly after the East Japan
Great Earthquake, we imposed on the good gracesof the populations of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima
prefectures and conducted a survey among them.
This project sought to establish which festivals andfolk cultural properties had been traditionally handed down within the impacted regions. This wasdone for the future, in preparing for when those persons who have been evacuated return to their placeof origin. It was also done to cover the eventualitythat such people might relocate to other areas ofJapan. In addressing either scenario, as a form ofassistance, we wanted such people both to be awareof and to know the cultures that they had carried
with them. It was for these reasons that the research was conducted. The results of this research
have already been printed, and Japanese language
reports issued for each of the three prefectures.
Thank you very much.
Timothy Curtis:
Thank you very much. The presentations by thefour discussants provided very concrete and valid
examples to enhance the understanding of the session theme. Now, discussion is opened and any
comments and questions are welcomed.
Diane Douglas:
I have a question for Webber Ndoro. During yourpresentation, you mentioned that in response toHIV, Ebola and other diseases, international organizations were coming into the country and interjecting their expertise in a way that could adversely affect the traditional systems within the country. I
was wondering if you could elaborate on how theinternational organizations come in and how they
are actually affecting the traditional systems. And
what would you recommend when aid agencies arecoming in, in order to take traditional measures into
consideration?
Webber Ndoro:
Not so much with HIV, but when Ebola broke out inWest Africa, there was huge panic.
There is an article in Lancet Medical Journal,

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

which alludes to the fact that there is an outbreak ofEbola almost every 2 to 3 years in Uganda, andthere is a cultural tradition of isolating the dead; therituals that are performed to the dead are still performed, but without necessarily interacting with thedead.
If you recall, in West Africa, quite a lot of thedeaths occurred because of the cultural ritual which
was supposed to be performed on the dead. So thispaper suggests that if we had paid attention to what
was happening, where Ebola used to occur, there
were already traditional responses to that.
Africa has quite a lot of these disasters caused bydiseases, and Ebola was one of them. And again,
there is also a tendency to do that, even with cultural heritage. Timbuktu, for example, was one
such area where we had to go in and try to protect
the heritage without necessarily consulting the locals on how to respond to this.
The general idea of my presentation is that weneed to create a dialogue between the traditional
systems and the modern systems. I am not sayingthat experts should not come, but we should open
up and see what traditional systems offer to see andwhether this can also be used.
Timothy Curtis:
Thank you. I think that has summarized in a very
neat way the importance of these traditional knowledge systems that have been discussed in this session. Next question, please.
Unidentified speaker:
I have a question to Randolph Langenbach. I arrived in my hotel room and dutifully started reading
the instructions in case of an earthquake. I was informed that this building can survive the impact
equal to the 1923 earthquake. When we are speaking about the traditional methods and traditional
knowledge, it is usually about the 2-, 3- or 4-story
buildings. The bad building code or bad building
practice in Turkey is not an excuse for what happened. Do you feel that there is room for modern
technology? What is in the new technologies to actually match and to give us solutions in the new urbanization?
Randolph Langenbach:That’s a very good question. I tried to open up to
add an answer to that in my last few slides.
When I did consult with the Global Earthquake
Model, I analyzed an entire database of buildings,

not just historical buildings. I was brought in because I had reached back in time and therefore I
was dealing with a wider range of building types
than somebody would be if they had been trained
only with what is constructed today. One of thethings I realized is that all engineers and architects
are mainly taught frame theory.
We’re taught how to analyze and calculate andhow to design and build frames. Through the 20th
century up to and including the present, we reallythink of buildings as frames. Most of our buildings
are in fact a combination of frames and walls. That’s
the difference between a building and a bridge. The
calculations that we do today for buildings are mainly to calculate a frame. The first invention of thecontraflexure method for analyzing a frame actually
reduced the amount of steel going into the steel
frame buildings, after the turn of the 20th century,
and was invented originally by a bridge engineer.
Then building engineers picked it up. One British
historian has pointed out that it came into the building engineering design theory in about 1910, thus it
was after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
And so, that last picture where I talked about
wall dominance, I think, opens up the whole direction. The reason why I presented the idea of an “Armature Crosswall,” which I learned from traditionalbuildings, is that every time I see these pancakedbuildings, many of them were built with the intention that they meet building codes. We’re talking
about a country that has very highly developed
seismic engineering training in the universities.
If you go to New Zealand, consider where didmost of the people die in the Christchurch earthquake? We saw many pictures of masonry buildingsthat fell down, but two thirds of the people who diedin that earthquake died in only one building, and it
was reinforced concrete frame. Another one would
have killed an equal number, had it been fully occupied. It was the Pyne Gould Building. And thenthere was the 19 stories Grand Chancellor Hotelwhich almost fell down and the whole center of thedowntown was essentially closed for 2 years until
they demolished it.
Those were all engineered to meet or exceed thebuilding codes, so what is missing is an understanding of the need for redundancy, that is the need in abuilding to have a secondary structural input forearthquake resistance—a secondary element that
can assist or take over in the event the primarystructural frame begins to degrade.
I hope for the idea that our thinking about build− 70 −(Session 2)

ings needs to be changed in some ways, while at thesame time I’m completely with you that modern
structural engineering is important and contributes
a great deal. That’s why I show the evolution of themodern structural frame in a positive light. In thecase of the 1906 earthquake, even one of our contemporary engineers explained that he was mystified as to why the buildings survived so well. Thoseare steel frame buildings. Thank you.
Timothy Curtis:
Closing this session, I would like to ask Takeyuki
Okubo to make a couple of comments.
Takeyuki Okubo:
Thank you very much for your active participation.
Having heard the lectures and discussions in thissession, I think we learned two important things to
consider.
The first point is that it is important to learn how
to identify risks from the disasters which have affected the place. The second point is that it is significant to understand traditional knowledge systems of the place from long-standing physical andsocial community systems.
At the end of today’s program, we are going tohave group discussions. Further discussion on thetheme of this session is expected to formulate our
opinions. Please join. Thank you.

(Provided by Takeyuki Okubo)− 71 −

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Session 3
Strengthening Governance and Institutions
to Manage Disaster Risk
[Facilitators] Paula Holland, Kanefusa Masuda
Contents
Presentation(3-1)
Cultural Heritage and Disaster Risk Reduction in Sweden

Erika Hedhammar

Presentation（3-2）
Local DRR to Conserve Local History and Local Identity

Sue Cole(Diane Douglas)

Presentation(3-3）
The Need for Full Engagement and Empowerment ofLocal Communities, Leaders, and Administrators

Gabriele Weichart

Presentation（3-4）
Coordination among Relevant Sectors for Emergency Response
for Heritage

France Desmarais

Roundtable Discussion

Nagtsho Dorji,
Ryusuke Kodani

(Session 3)

Presentation (3-1)
Cultural Heritage and Disaster Risk Reduction in Sweden– the importance of cooperation –Erika Hedhammar
Advisor, Conservator,
Swedish National Heritage Board

The Swedish National Heritage Board is the agencyof the Swedish government responsible for heritage and historic environment issues. Our mission isto play a proactive, coordinating role in heritage
promotion efforts, and to ensure that the historic
environment is preserved in the most effective possible manner. This includes protecting cultural heritage from disasters.
The watchwords for the Swedish National Heritage Board are openness, cooperation and professionalism. Especially the word “cooperation” is important for disaster risk reduction for cultural
heritage.
Our work with disaster risk reduction for cultural heritage requires cooperation with other nonconservation organizations dealing with risk reduction, where the exchange of knowledge andexperience is essential. Such organizations are, forexample, salvage managers, fire brigades, police,
insurance companies and owners of cultural heritage buildings.
Disaster preparedness for cultural heritage
needs to be included in already existing routines at
local, regional and national levels. It is also important that natural disasters and climate change areconsidered in preventive conservation plans.
The Swedish National Heritage Board is atpresent working with a three-year plan on climatechange and cultural heritage buildings. The aim is
to gain and spread more knowledge about climatechange and cultural heritage. We plan a yearly seminar for the regional authorities working with cultural heritage and climate change.
As a vital part of the national disaster preparedness for cultural heritage, the Swedish National
Heritage Board runs the Network for Fire Protection and Disaster Preparedness in Heritage Sites.
Last year the new Network for Protection Against
Heritage Thefts was launched. In these networks
we have representation from salvage management,
police, museums and insurance companies, as well
as representatives from the Church of Sweden, theSwedish Civil Contingencies Agency and the Swedish Fire Protection Association.
− 75 −The networks meet four times a year and discuss
fires and thefts that have happened, and what we
can learn from them. To meet continuously meansthat it is easy to get in touch when needed and especially during a disaster.
In 2014, the Network for Fire Protection and Disaster Preparedness in Heritage Sites did a study
tour to our neighbors in Norway to learn more
about their work with fire prevention in cultural
heritage. Our two countries have a lot in common,for example, wooden buildings, similar legislationand climate. This year, we will also participate in anational conference for fire brigades to inform
about cultural heritage and how they can work actively to protect it.

Fig.1: The Network for Fire Protection and Disaster Preparedness in
Heritage Sites on a study tour to Norway

Since 2011, the Swedish National Heritage Board
is a member of the Swedish National Platform forWork with Natural Disasters according to the Hyogo Framework for Action. Cooperation in the national platform involves liaising with various authorities and the opportunity to gain knowledge about
natural disasters such as floods, landslides, flash
floods and forest fires, as well as to disseminate
knowledge regarding cultural heritage.
Every year, the Platform organizes a field trip.
Last year we went to the northern part of Sweden,
where there have been problems with landslides

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Fig. 2: Field trip with the Swedish National Platform for Work with
Natural Disasters to an area with Iron Age graves and risks of landslides

close to a river. In this area, there are a lot of ancientremains, such as Iron Age graves. Archeologists at
the regional museum presented their risk assessment and told us about the excavations made before the eventual collapse of the graves.
One example of the work in the platform is a pilot study in the south of Sweden, where we combined the new nationwide elevation model, sea-level
rise and cultural heritage values. We used the models for elevation and sea level rise with the information about ancient sites, listed buildings and got an
overview where we can anticipate problems withthe sea level rise. Thus, we can pinpoint whichbuildings and sites are most at risk.
The need for cooperation was highlighted during a forest fire in the summer of 2014 which threatened the Engelsberg Ironworks World Heritage

Site and seven churches. Measures were taken by
the Church, the County Administrative Board, theowner, and the insurance company of Engelsberg
Ironworks. The seven churches and the Engelsberg Ironworks were close to the fire, but the fireturned and they escaped unharmed. However, thesituation showed the importance of preparation,communication, and cooperation both during andafter the fire. There have not been many big wildfires in Sweden and that means that there was little
experience to handle this big fire. There have been
several reports about what happened during thefire and the lessons learnt. Some information in thereports will also be about the cultural heritage. For
example, many ancient sites are in the area and foresters have to be careful not to destroy them. In addition, more ancient sites will probably be found after the fire.
There is a lot to do to improve the communication during disasters in Sweden. This work will continue. Some results of such work become clear
from a newspaper that interviewed a fire brigade
team leader. In this interview he said: “We work in
the area where Engelsbergs Ironworks is situated.
We have to protect world heritage at all costs.” By
that we can feel secure that cultural heritage isclaiming its rightful position also with the fire brigade.
Finally, the Swedish National Heritage Board
was invited to the two dialogue meetings about the
Post Hyogo Framework for Action in Stockholm in2012 and 2014. The Swedish National Heritage
Board is proud to be a part of the Swedish delegation to the UNISDR Sendai meeting.

− 76 −

(Session 3)

Presentation (3-2)
Local Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) to Conserve Local History and Local Identity
Sue Cole(kindly delivered by Diane Douglas)
ICOMOS–ICORPOne of the key things that everybody has been talking about is bringing in local communities and traditional cultural knowledge versus global communities and international organizations, and trying tointegrate those two. And this goes back to some of
Terry Cannon’s definition for cultures, values, identity and risk, how you value culture and how individuals and communities identify with it. A lot of ourcultural clues are personal and come from our own
backgrounds; who we are and how we were raised.
For international organizations or other communities to go into somewhere and basically say ‘this iswhat you need to value’ inevitably causes problems.
We need to take into consideration how those local
communities value their own resources and heritage and respect the knowledge that they bring topreserving those resources themselves.
Cultural identity is or should be the core elementof planning, whether it is at a local, community, city,
region or statewide level, and the need for DRR
must be incorporated into the overall planning. The
key is that people are aware that cultural heritage isimportant for creating and shaping identity within aculture or within a community, and how this can beused to help respond to the disasters and to thelong-term recovery as well.
I think one of the key elements of this entire
presentation is the importance of involving communities in general DRR planning for reduction planning in general, but particularly, to get the bespoken protection of their own cultural heritage. As
many of the presenters had talked about this morning, communities will have their own ideas andtheir own knowledge that they bring to the table on
how to actually protect the things that matter tothem. And they might not be the same as those of
the people who are trying to help. A good exampleof this is Westminster Abbey (Fig.1). Sue noted thatwhen she was preparing the Statement of Outstanding Value for the Westminster just recently, the Abbey staff had huge problems with the process. Despite being a World Heritage Site since 1987, they
still resented the fact that they had not been involved, and that Westminster Abbey was nominated− 77 −

Fig.1: Westminster Abbey

strictly because it was a beautiful structure and took
no notice of the fact that it has been a living breathing place of worship for several hundred years,
which for them was the most important thing. In
their view, they had been looking after the building
for nearly 1000 years, and the maintenance andDRR were intertwined in everything they did. But
the rules of the process imposed on them by UNESCO meant that to recognize this intangible value
as Outstanding Universal Value would require a renomination, something no one has the time or money to do. So the misunderstanding remains. And we
see a lot of such cases.
And again, at Blenheim World Heritage Site, theUK Government basically came in and nominatedthe site, but none of the owners or managers wereactually consulted or involved at all. They only
learned about it after the inscription. And so, if you
put yourself in their place, how would you feel if you
were the one whose family had been managing thesite for generations, and you had been there foryour entire life or career to find out that the government has stepped in and they are now going to tell
you how to manage your home, without actuallyconsulting you on the process. You would probably
be resentful too.
We looked at local heritage definitions earlier today and saw that heritage belongs to us all, particularly world heritage. However, we also have to understand that local heritage matters enormously tothe people and communities who own it, experience
it and fund it on a day-to-day basis. We can harness
this passion by listening more and by helping to em-Tokyo Strategy Meeting

power individuals or community groups in preserving cultural heritage resources, and exporting bestpractices as widely as we can.
I would like to give an example of Bewdley as themost perfect small Georgian town in Worcestershire. It is located on the River Severn, which floods
routinely. In our DRR community, we have worked
in flood disaster areas and know the damage it
brings to cultural heritage resources. And so, people in Bewdley came together in the late 1990s andearly 2000s and tried to identify the ways in which
they can make their own community, their own village, more resilient to future flooding.
And so, they started the National Flood Forum(NFF) in 2002 with government funding. It focusedon resilience in the community and involves thecommunity to identify how best to preserve theirown resources. So, the pressure from the NFF andtheir members, coupled with increased flooding led
the UK Government to increase funding for preventative flood measures and issue more guidance on
how to make all homes resilient to flooding, not justthe historic ones. More importantly, the guidance iseasy to read and practical, rather than full of expert
jargon. NFF has also been working with insurancecompanies to make sure that homes in flood risk
areas can be insured.
Lots of different methods of flood resilience
were looked at - from flood proofing homes by putting in high level electrical sockets, stone or tile
floors and back valves on water pipes, toilets anddrains to hardening road surfaces to prevent themwashing away, and installing flood barrier plates sothat barriers can be easily erected in advance andthen taken down when not needed. This method
preserves the appearance of historic areas much

Fig.2: Preventative flood measures along the River Severn,
Bawdley

more than the standard concrete anti-flood re-vetting! (Fig.2)
Another good example of community-based heritage is the Severn Trent Railway where volunteers
got together to preserve, conserve and operate asteam railway (Fig.3). When the line suffered damage from landslides during a thunderstorm in 2007,
volunteers and the community were very quick toappeal publicly on social media for funds to repair
and restore the line. Being able to get the messageout quickly via news organizations and other networks meant they were up and running muchquicker. This is something we can use elsewhere
and we should not underestimate the power of social media in getting a message out to request
help−remember, a picture tells a thousand words.

Fig.3: Severn Trent Railway

The Ironbridge in Shropshire (Fig.4), known as
the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, straddles the River Severn which, as it was mentioned,
floods regularly. Unfortunately, the Ironbridge
Gorge is geologically unstable and it worsened during the Industrial Revolution because of mining,
spoil heaps from factories, and tile works in theGorge. The local council and community have been
trying to identify the ways to protect buildings andstructures in the area from landslides and flooding.
So, community resilience guides have been developed for householders, where the emphasis wasplaced on respecting the historical integrity and industrial past of the area. This approach is now being
used in other areas.

Fig.4: Ironbridge Gorge− 78 −

(Session 3)

Everybody has mentioned the fire brigade andthe importance of the fire brigade in the preservation of historical resources. In the UK the fire engines are now being fitted with databases indicating
what is important about the buildings and structures, so that they are not inadvertently damaged
during the actual response to a disaster, which as
we all know has happened in the past. Fire brigades
are now being trained in the importance of cultural
heritage, and are going around talking to owners
and managers about preparedness and response
measures.
We had discussed this earlier today, but there
are other ways to repair buildings. One way of repairing disused or damaged buildings is to develop
preservation trusts or community trusts - these canbe responsive and locally based and, therefore, better able to raise, target and focus resources that the
government does not necessarily have. One good
example of this approach is a fire-damaged site Astley Castle in Warwickshire that has been rehabilitated and restored to a high level of historic accuracy, and is now used as a holiday venue (Fig.5).
To conclude, we have to understand the differences between national and local, and to make surethat communities are involved in the plans affecting
their heritage and surroundings. As DRR and cul-

− 79 −

Fig.5: Astley Castle

tural heritage experts, we all need to understandthat we have a lot to offer but also a lot to learn.
I would also like to add that ICOMOS-ICORP
has been working with UNESCO on the 1954 Hague
Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property
in the Event of Armed Conflict Second Protocol
Committee and was trying to expand it to covernatural disasters and DRR, so that a peacetime planning and training in DRR can be encouraged. We
hope that the Blue Shield is able to do more in the
future. Thank you.
And thank you to Diane Douglas for delivering
the talk in my absence.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Presentation (3-3)
The Need for Full Engagement and Empowerment of Local Communities,
Leaders, and Administrators
Gabriele Weichart
Senior Lecturer,
University of Vienna

In DRR and also post-disaster reconstruction projects there is a strong focus on several issues. One
is to integrate local communities, to strengthen theroles of local leaders and administrators, to implement grassroots participation, to protect cultural
heritage, and, of course, generally to empower communities and local leaders, and also we talk aboutsustainability and resilience.
I am going to put up a few questions that cameinto my mind when thinking about the subject. And
some of the questions, of course, have already beenaddressed, but I think it is nevertheless quite usefulto rethink them again.
The question number one is what a community
is, and who are its members? As we have heard before, we tend to think of society or a social group as
something confined, something that we can define
and we can address adequately. But more often, it is
the case that it is much more fragmented, much
more incoherent, and much more unequal than wemight believe.

Who are the local leaders? That is also a question. Are the local leaders the same as the local administrators? And what role do they play? Are they
traditional local leaders−and I will present a casestudy from Indonesia, from a country that is very
different, of course, from Central Europe, wherethat is the case−or are they administrators, whohave been installed by the local governments andwho do not hold a traditional role in that society?
How is power distributed among the different
stakeholders? In fact, again, we come to the question, of who holds power in the society, who holds
power within smaller groups, but also in the larger
regions.
And what does participation mean? Because theclaims for participation in development and also in
DRR have been very prominent over the last few
years, but what do we actually mean, who participates and in what form? And also, what kind of status and authority do the participants have?
Then, the next question is, who defines and iden-

Nias

Yogyakarta

Fig.1: Location of Nias and Yogyakarta (Google earth is as the basemap.)− 80 −

(Session 3)

tifies cultural heritage? Again, who are the people
who will say that an object or intangible cultural
practice is cultural heritage? That again refers to
the power structures in a society. Who are the ones
who have a voice and who speaks for whom?
And last but not least, how can we define andmeasure sustainability and resilience in a specificcontext? Again, perhaps our colleague Joseph King
will say that I should come up with a concrete answer, with a solution, and not only ask questions but
I think in order to come up with a manageable solution, it is good that we have the right questions.
In the following, I want to present a case study ofa project which is called Architecture, Space, andSociety in Post-Disaster Built Environments in Indonesia, a very long title, so we had the abbreviation of ASSIP, which is much shorter and perhaps
easy to remember. And in this project, I worked together with my colleagues from the anthropology
department, but also from the architecture department in Austria and Indonesia.
And there are two regions where we focused ourwork. One is in the small island of Nias, which iswest of the coast of Sumatra. And the other one isthe area around the city of Yogyakarta, which is inCentral Java. There are two regions that are very
different in many ways. Nias is a small island with arather small population concentrated in villages ofapproximately 2000 inhabitants each, while the average population per settlement in Indonesia is
about 760,000 inhabitants.
On the other hand, Yogyakarta is a large city,and the area around it is one of the most densely
populated in Indonesia. So, only in the Regency of
Bantul, which is one part of the province of Yogyakarta, we have approximately 910,000 people living,
and the villages here have an average population of
about 25,000. So you can see there is a vast differ-

ence.
Economically, there is also a big difference, although in both regions, agriculture plays a greatrole. In Nias, the farmers have focused on growing
cash crops in order to make a living. In Yogyakarta,
it is mainly handicrafts, such as batik and leather
puppets, or pottery, which have become very prominent over the last few years.
And why did we focus on these two regions? It isbecause both have experienced major earthquakes
in about just within a year’s difference. The first wasin Nias, and Nias was also hit by the tsunami, which,as you remember, was on the 26th of December
2004. And only a few months later, they had a reallystrong earthquake of magnitude 8.7 in March 2005,
and a year later on the 27th of May, there was one
not as strong but also very strong of magnitude 6.3
in the Yogyakarta area. And we had many more victims in Yogyakarta, not least because of its muchlarger population of about 6000, whereas the population of Nias is approximately 900. And also, thenumber of houses destroyed and damaged wasmuch higher in Yogyakarta.
But nevertheless, Nias benefited much morefrom international donors and international funds
than Yogyakarta, and not least because of the tsunami experience. And because it was part of the socalled multi-donor fund that was established for theProvince of Aceh and Nias, in order to repair, rebuild and reconstruct the area.
The main goal of this project was to rebuild thearea after earthquake, so we were focused on the
mid-term, rather than long-term effects. The midterm effects could be seen after the reconstruction,
but sometimes we could feel them during the reconstruction as well. But we were mainly looking at
the architecture, and looking whether the architecture had changed dramatically, whether people

Fig.2: Houses in North Nias after the earthquakes (left) traditional houses, (right) standardized house− 81 −

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

tended to build in new ways than before, or if they
thought that the old ways were the right ways ofbuilding. So, we had a village in North Nias withsome traditional houses with the thatched roofs andelevated floors. And, a building that was built withthe money from the donors, and which was not only
a very standardized, but also a very bad quality
building. (Fig.2)
And when we went there in 2011 and 2012, manyof the houses had already been abandoned because
they were useless for the residents. In other words,
they could not function as a dwelling.
Moreover, there was no canal system and noelectricity to satisfy basic human needs. The residents had to provide for it themselves, and thenthey gave up, because they were lacking the financial means to deal with those issues.
There is a very different type of traditional housein Bantul area, which is in the province of Yogyakarta. And, again, there is a house that was rebuilt
after the earthquake. (Fig.3)
What is especially remarkable for us in the traditional houses is that they had survived the earthquake much better than modern houses built at thesame time. As a result, the great value of the traditional architecture became obvious not only for experts or researchers, but also for the local people,
and we believe that it has changed the attitudes of
local people towards their own architectural heritage. Instead of demanding something new andmodern, people rediscovered the value of traditional architecture. Indeed, it did save people’s lives,and one should think twice before abandoning it.
The problem with the reconstructed houses was
not only the bad quality of construction, but thatseveral agencies and also a very big government
agency were involved in the rebuilding and organ-

izing.
There are rumors about the corruption involvedin the process, but I do not know how much of it is
it true. Certainly, what is clear is that there was a lotof mistrust among the local population towards
these agencies. And although many people made alot of money, and also individuals made money because they got jobs in construction, still the generalcomplaint was that they had not been consulted. Itmeans that certain local leaders and certain local
administrators cooperated with these agencies, but
the local population itself had not been consulted
and that was one of the reasons why the houses did
not work, why they were not designed the way people wanted, and why the outcome was actually very
bad, although a lot of money had been put into it.
I would like to present another case of the housein Yogyakarta; It is one of the so-called core houses
that appear in many types and shapes. This small
core house is 6 by 3, which is 18 square meters in
size. They were designed by students and lecturers
from the University of Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta,
in collaboration with local authorities, and were provided to inhabitants of a small village in the affectedarea.
A very special and unique feature of these houses was that they could easily be expanded, whichmeans that within a year’s time, the majority of thepeople who got these houses had the possibility tomake them bigger, to expand them to the front, tothe back, or to the sides.
So, in the end, these people were very happy
with these houses and they thought it was a goodidea. This is just an example where much better results were achieved because the community was
more integrated and was more consulted about
what they needed and how they needed to have it

Fig.3: Houses in Yogyakarta after the earthquakes (left) traditional houses, (right) houses rebuilt− 82 −

(Session 3)

done.
In the end, I would like to say a few words about
the role of the culture in this process. I have beentalking about cultural heritage in terms of architecture and showed that traditional architecture wasactually quite useful. But for various reasons, thetraditional methods of construction are not used tosuch a large extent anymore; for example, unavailability of wood material, labor-intensity, and highcosts. But also, because people today want to havemore privacy than you have in traditional houses.
And so, from that point of view, many people stillchoose modern buildings, which often are made ofconcrete or bricks.
Still, even in these circumstances, culture also
matters. It can be seen in the ways of how people
deal disasters and reconstruction. In Nias, religionis thought as the dominant feature of the region.
Although it maybe did not play a big role at the timeof disaster, still, from a social structure point ofview, this area is outstanding. Nias is a hilly islandwith small villages. The villages were traditionallybuilt on the hills and fortified. In southern Nias, thevillages are surrounded with fences, and you haveto climb up the stairs to get there. That means there
is a strong sense of belonging within the village, butalso a certain mistrust and suspicion towards everybody who comes from outside. As a result, cooperation beyond the village boundaries and beyond
the kinship boundaries, or family and clan boundaries does not happen so often and, certainly, does
not have a long tradition.
In Yogyakarta, or in many parts of Java, we had apeasant society engaged in wet rice farming for along time, so with the need of close collaboration
between the neighbors, there is a long tradition ofcooperation in extended social groups, which has
been embedded in the society. It also means that, in− 83 −

times of disaster, it was much easier for the authorities in Yogyakarta to get people together for collaboration rebuilding their villages, and to help eachother in house construction. On the other hand, in
Nias, there was a lack of such a sort of tradition.
I do not want to say that this is the only explanation, but I think it is something we often tend to forget, because we have a certain model and we tend
to apply it wherever we go, and it might work in one
society, but it might not work in the other.
Coming back to the local leaders and administrators, it is also the question, who are the people who
deal with the authorities, agencies, NGOs etcetera.
Do they have the trust? Do they have the authority
from the community to speak for them? Or are they,
perhaps, self-nominated leaders, who are not really
representative?
One of the village heads in Nias had problems
supporting a project after the disaster. A well had to
be built because there was a lack of clean water.
And the well was built, and every household had to
pay a very small amount per month just to keep it
maintained. But the majority of the villagers werereluctant to pay as little as a few cents, which is nota lot even for Indonesian standards, because theysaid they did not know what was going to happen
with this money, and they did not trust their village
head to handle it. And so, up until now they staywithout a clean source of fresh water. I think that
this is something we need to be aware of during reconstruction.
Unfortunately, I do not really have solutions forthese problems, but I believe that there is meaningin rising questions, so that we can discuss them andget suggestions on how we can overcome suchproblems in limited time with little resources, andhow we find out what really needs to be done andhow it can be done.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Presentation (3-4)
Coordination among Relevant Sectors for Emergency Response for Heritage
France Desmarais
Director of Programmes and Partnerships
at International Council of Museums

The International Council of Museums (ICOM)
was founded in 1946, on the occasion of the creationof the United Nations Educational, Scientific andCultural Organisation (UNESCO), to insure a NonGovernmental Organisation (NGO) would represent the work and interest of museums and museum
professionals worldwide. As early on as its creation,
the protection of cultural heritage was included in
the founding mission statement of ICOM, an organization bringing together heritage professionals in
the post-World War II world. Seven decades later,
the protection of heritage in emergency situations
and the fight against illicit traffic in cultural goods
are central to the work of the organisation that can
now count on 35,000 members present in 140 countries. This presentation will illustrate a part ofICOMʼs role as an important international player inthe protection of cultural heritage. This is a muchneeded role, in a period where the world is witnessing severe upsurge in attacks on cultural property
through armed conflict.
ICOM and the Protection of Cultural Heritage
The International Council of Museums (ICOM)
was created thanks to the will of a handful of men
and women who, by coming together to represent
the museum world and promote international cooperation through their professional networks, wereplacing the role and responsibilities of museum professionals and institutions at the heart of a new organization.
From the ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums, nowreferred to as the international base-standard codefor museum professionals worldwide, to the wellknown Red Lists of Cultural Objects at Risk−directly
associated with helping law enforcement agencies
recognize and seize cultural heritage items looted
in many countries, including quantities of antiquities in recent years−the aim of many of ICOMʼsprogrammes has been to develop innovative practical tools designed to help protect cultural property.
ICOMʼs work on cultural property protection(CPP) has maintained a progressive momentum ofdevelopment over many years: from setting stand-ards and guidelines for the industry to editing practical tools used by law enforcement agencies aroundthe world. More than an internal task for ICOMʼsmembers or member museums alone, ICOMʼs mission to protect cultural heritage has caused it to linkup with other agencies in a global effort after ICOMwas recognized by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) as the NGO
expert to support efforts against illicit traffic of cultural goods. The expert group now pursuing this
responsibility connects ICOM with five international/inter-governmental organizations: UNESCO,UNIDROIT, and the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime (UNODC), for their respective
legal instruments on the subject, and INTERPOL
and the World Customs Organization (WCO), representing international law-enforcement agencies.
In this group, ICOM provides its resources as thescientific expert on movable cultural goods.
Protecting Heritage in Emergencies or After
Disasters
Faced with the large number of museums destroyedin the wake of the 2004 Tsunami and the outpouring
proposals for support from museum institutions
worldwide, ICOM decided to create a Disaster Relief Task Force for Museums (DRTF). The DRTF is
a technical committee of ICOM dedicated to emergency response for museums, gathering museumrelated professionals from different parts of theworld that stand ready to provide advice and assistance to international colleagues and their institutions upon request. With the help of the Programmes Department in the ICOM Secretariat,
DRTF monitors emergency situations to assess
damage to cultural heritage in order to quickly evaluate the most pressing needs of museums and other heritage sites and places of conservation. Since
its creation in 2005, DRTF has monitored a large
number of different types of emergencies. Keeping
in mind that this body was created after a natural
disaster, and that since 2011 it has been mainly
monitoring armed conflicts, this implies a drasticchange in the way the Task Force now needs to op− 84 −(Session 3)

erate, including conducting a review of ICOM’s
monitoring protocols and follow-up methods.
The Disaster Relief Task Force for Museums
also contributes to ICOMʼs efforts as part of theBlue Shield. Following World War II, in 1954, UNESCO adopted the Convention for the Protection ofCultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict,which created rules to protect cultural goods during armed conflicts. The Blue Shield is the symbolused to identify cultural sites protected by this Con-vention. It is also the name of the International
Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS) that works
under the principle of subsidiarity, to protect world
cultural heritage threatened by natural and humanmade disasters. Created in 1996, ICBS brings together the knowledge, experience and international
networks of the following four major international
non-governmental organizations dealing with cultural heritage: ICA (International Council on Archives), ICOM (International Council of Muse-

ICOM’s integrated approach to DRR

Fig.1: ICOM’S integrated approach to DRRICOM Disaster Relief Task ForceThe International Committee of the Blue Shield

Created in 2005

Equivalent of the Red Cross for heritage protection

Members from all over the world:
Australia
Kenya
Chile
Netherlands
Germany
NorwayJapan
TurkeySymbol of the 1954 Hague Convention

South Korea
United Kingdom
USA

Marks cultural sites and monuments, conferring them a specificprotection

International committee set up in 1996 to work to protect theworld’s cultural heritage threatened by war and natural disasters

Monitoring and reporting on museums and heritage in disaster areas

Four founding NGOs:
ICA: International Council on Archives
ICOM: International Council of Museums
ICOMOS: International Council of Monuments and Sites
IFLA: International Federations of Library Associations andInstitutions

Raising awareness on the situation among the international community
Sharing information with concerned partners
Assistance to museums

Contribute to training, workshops and field missions

Fig.2: ICO’S Disaster Relief Task Force

Fig.3: The International Committee of the Blue Shield− 85 −

Tokyo Strategy Meetingums), IFLA (International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions), and ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites). Again
here, close cooperation and effective coordination
is key to successfully protecting cultural heritage at
risk worldwide.
The Necessity of International Cooperation
ICOM’s concern with promoting and protecting
the tangible and intangible heritage of the world
has taken many shapes and forms over the years,
but one thing has always been at the centre of its
action: ethical behaviour and practice. This is because protecting our common history and memory
is not only the right thing to do, it is the ethicalthing to do. Placing ethical practice at the core of
our work as museum professionals not only shines
positively on the institutions we represent but also
benefits the communities we work with and for. Museums have definitely improved the ethics of theirpractices in acquisitions, not limiting their action to
the legal framework that prevails in their country,
as recommended in the ICOM Code of Ethics forMuseums.
Alongside its principal ethical concerns, it isstriking to see, looking back, how ICOMʼs programmes towards the protection of movable andimmovable, tangible and intangible, cultural andnatural heritage have been developed with threeother key objectives in mind: being innovative, committed and efficient.
While the world is suffering violent conflicts inregions that also happen to be cradles of civilization, and where a wealth of irreplaceable culturalriches and knowledge are at high risk of destruction and disappearance, the work of an organizationthat came to life in the aftermath of the last major
period of sustained international armed conflict,
and whose mandate is to promote and protect cultural heritage, is today more than ever necessary.
It is important to pursue the fulfilment of ICOMʼspublic service missions through the developmentof its programmes, ensuring that its work is complementary to that of civil society and international organisation everywhere. It is also a great responsibility towards the transmission of the worldʼs heritage
to future generations. ICOMʼs work and actions
have come a long way over seven decades since its
founding, and it remains an important duty to ensure that its manifold programmes and interlinked
networks worldwide continue to travel a long distance for a very long time.
What are the challenges ahead? Doing more preventive work, of course. We are starting to do this.
The 1954 convention has asked us to start working
on the lists of crisis situations that are putting heritage at risk around the world, so that we can predict
where the next hotspots will be. And then we could
help in preparedness, just as we would do for natural disasters.
Let me conclude by emphasizing the importanceof the lessons learned. Just last night I was goingover papers written after Iraq in 2003. Soon after,
here we are, back working on Iraq. What have welearned? Have we learned a lesson from what has
happened? Iʼm afraid the recent outcomes of the intentional attacks on heritage will again force us toreview our processes. Procedures that we have already been forced to review. But above all, good
coordination will be very important to those revisions.

− 86 −

(Session 3)

Roundtable Discussion[Facilitators]
Paula Holland, Kanefusa Masuda

Nagtsho Dorji (Ministr y of Home and Cultural
Affairs, Bhutan):
I would like to briefly share the challenges of managing disaster risks for cultural heritage in Bhutan.
Bhutan is known for its unique living cultural
heritage, and I stress the word ‘living’ because mostof the sites are extensively used by people, and remain the same as they were built. These buildings
are very much the nerve centers for housing andare triggering a lot of communal activities in Bhutan. A decade ago, our Department of Culture under the Ministry of Domestic and Cultural Affairs
struggled to balance heritage site protection initiatives with sustaining the function of these sites. We
had to sensitize our main custodians who were local
communities and monks. And we had to sensitize
them because of the fact that they wanted to reconstruct their cultural heritage. Now they are more
exposed to modern techniques and modern materials, and they wanted to enhance their housing accordingly.
Therefore, to avoid such trends, efforts weremade to sensitize local communities, to understandthe values associated with traditional buildings, andto take initiatives to protect the sites while continuing to use them as part of their daily lives. And ofcourse, as in any government initiatives, we needed
to put in place policies and legislation that regulate
the protection of cultural heritage of the country,
and, to a large extent, we were also working towards recognizing the entire country as a culturallandscape.
In Bhutan, the farmhouses, temples and fortresses are all built with the use of similar building
techniques. It is very important to understand thisin view of what I will be talking about.
My experiences of disasters are connected to theearthquakes that happened in 2009 and 2011. In theaftermath of the earthquakes, the government was
initiating recovery and reconstruction activities.
And just before the 2009 earthquake, we had established the Department of Disaster Management
under the same ministry that I work with. This
agency was supposed to help coordinate disaster− 87 −

risk management at the national level and at the local level, in coordination with the relevant agencies,
including partner agencies across the border as
well.
But what we realized in the process of this whole
recovery and reconstruction was that we werelargely geared towards rebuilding. We wanted torebuild structures. And while we were rebuilding,we were propagating seismic resilient technologies
very foreign to our local communities. And I meanrural communities, because the earthquakes hadlargely affected the rural areas. What happened in
the process was that we ended up having very poor
constructions. It happened because the government wanted to stimulate participation of the community and we trained them to use concrete. Even
though now we know that it is not appropriate, thatwas the best solution that we had at the time.
And of course, what happened next is that people
were starting to lose faith in the traditional way ofbuilding. They wanted to bring down and rebuild
even good buildings, which were not affected by
the earthquakes, not only their homes but also thetemples where they worship, and the fortresses,
which serve as administrative centers. They wanted
to rebuild them in a very different way, using modern materials and techniques, because they werecertain that it was a better way of recovery and disaster preparedness.
And now my question is – why do we introduce
new techniques and materials as part of disaster recovery and reconstruction? And we realized that we
do not have enough research in the field of structural performance of traditional construction techniques and materials in Bhutan. And I think this is
one of the major drawbacks. I have heard what Randolph Langenbach mentioned earlier about how wetend to be more confident with newer structures,and this is what we teach and promote in our education system.
There is hardly a system that teaches you how to
use your own materials and techniques and how
these could be made more reliable. Secondly, Bhutan being a developing country, we look up to otherTokyo Strategy Meeting

countries adopting their professional education system, so we end up teaching about reinforced concrete structures. And then, you come back homeand you don’t know how to deal with your own typeof construction techniques and materials.
These were two major drawbacks in trying to recover back from a disaster: the lack of sensitivity
and the lack of understanding of our own cultural
heritage. The government was instilling community participation in rebuilding, but communities
were happier to outsource this kind of work to outside workers and not be a part of it at all. At thattime, being an architect, I did not see it as a disaster.
But then, the 2009 and 2011 earthquakes made us
rethink, particularly from the local community’s
perspective, how we approach the rebuilding.
Another experience that we had was the fire accident of 2012 at a heritage site of national significance. This highlighted the importance and theneed to develop a risk management plan for cultural
heritage properties in Bhutan. We were very awarethat it needs to be sensitive and effective to culturalvalues associated with such living cultural sites andthat it had to be done very soon.
Why we needed to hurry was because in thisparticular case after the fire, we as a government
and as a nation were more focused on rebuilding,which comes very naturally to the Bhutanese. And
we place very high priority to making sure thatstructures such as our fortresses are rebuilt. At thatmoment, our priorities were not on risk management but on how to maintain the authenticity of theimportant cultural heritage: to comply with theoriginal design, original form and silhouette, construction techniques and the materials. While we
worked very hard on these kinds of issues, we overlooked the important problem of disaster prevention for the future.
Similar to what was already mentioned by one of
the earlier speakers, in addition to the task of rebuilding, there is the context of authenticity, and itmeans weighing the choices of whether to rebuild itback the way it was before, or whether to incorporate new techniques and materials. And the rightway is not necessarily something we know, butmaybe something we need to learn from books or
the experience of other countries. This took time,and eventually resulted in the late implementationof risk management plan. We tend to forget whatcaused the fire. Without a proper disaster preparedness system, this particular heritage site cannot beprotected.

So, I would like to conclude by saying that integrating disaster risk reduction measures for cultural heritage into post-earthquake reconstruction
programs is very important. The system that is put
in place should not be too foreign to the end-users.
Because, if it is too foreign, people lose confidence
in their cultural heritage and they slowly shy awayfrom it. And when their participation is needed,
they rely everything to the government, and, eventually, totally remove themselves from the conservation process. Thank you.
Ryusuke Kodani (Tohoku Histor y Museum,Japan):I am joining you today from Miyagi Prefecture in
the Tohoku Region. Today marks the fourth year
after the disaster. Thinking back about that day, it
was a really cold day with snowflakes fluttering inthe sky.
The topic of this session is governance. Whenthe disaster occurred four years ago, I worked forthe cultural heritage section of the Miyagi Prefectural Government. Back then, I was responsible forthe movable, intangible and folk cultural properties.
After the Great East Japan Earthquake, I ended up
actively participating in the project called “Cultural
Properties Rescue Operations.” There are alreadysome official reports about this project, but today I
will talk about what happened prior to its initiation.
On March 11th, I worked in a mountainous inlandarea of Miyagi at a place called Naruko Onsen.
Traveling by car, under normal conditions it would
take about an hour to return from there to my office. However, on that day, all of the traffic lights
along the route were knocked out. I finally managed to get back to my office following a drive thatlasted about five hours and involved me driving incomplete darkness.
On March 13th, we inspected the damage caused
to cultural properties in Miyagi Prefecture and confirmed that some of them had been broken. There
was almost no gasoline available and there was noelectricity. We did not even know roughly how
many people had been impacted by the tsunami, or
what the situation was in the prefecture’s inland areas. We started to work under these circumstances.
Our first aim was to grasp the situation. Once we
had some idea of what was happening, then we
started to talk with the owners of cultural properties.
Here is a story about my encounter with one
owner of an Important Cultural Property. The loca− 88 −(Session 3)

tion I visited was next to the area that had beendamaged by the tsunami. A lot of people who were
impacted by the events evacuated there. Under conditions of no electricity and not much else, local
people promptly organized a soup kitchen to feed
them. It was under such circumstances that we visited the Important Cultural Property. Although it
had been seriously damaged, we were unable to act
immediately at that time, but we could neverthelessgrasp the situation, and also tell the owner that wewill take care of the building, when the time comesto act. Some months later, the property owner offered the following comment:“Under the initial conditions that confronted us
all, it was obvious that a priority was given to saving
human lives. At the same time, however, I was conscious of possessing a cultural property of national
importance. It was also damaged. Under the circumstances that I had no idea how I could keep the property in the future, it was very encouraging that somepeople came from the prefecture and talked to me.
Because there was somebody else there who took aninterest in the fate of the cultural property, such interest in itself became a form of protection.”
This episode was not a lone example. In manycases, our job consisted of offering encouragement
to local people, and thinking along with them about
the best solutions in the wake of the disaster. For
example, among the 150 houses in a community,
only 20 remained, and the rest were swept up by thetsunami. The survivors decided to leave the place
and they had concerns that they could not takeplace and take over their community festival any
more, which was designated as intangible culturalproperty of prefectural significance. When we wereasked by local people about the best way to proceed, we told them that just doing what they couldat the moment was good enough. And then, somehow they continued their traditional events in theyear following the disaster. I feel that conveying
such sentiment to the owners and stakeholders ofcultural heritage is a part of my job.
In this way, the job of people like my colleagues
and myself at the local government organization
mainly consisted in giving direct support to cultural
heritage owners or custodians. On the other hand, I
did not know what else we could do. What reallyencouraged us at the time was the news that the
Agency for Cultural Affairs was going to initiate the“Cultural Properties Rescue Project.” I never heard
about it before, so I hurriedly obtained some reports on the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in− 89 −

order to study the scope of the previous project andmade the necessary arrangements.
Our big advantage in response to disaster wasthat in Miyagi Prefecture we had developed thegovernment network for the protection of culturalproperties that also involved the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Through this network of specialists
and the backup from the national government, therescue of cultural properties could begin. The two
types of relationships that we developed, with cultural property owners and with the government organizations, defined our success in the protection ofnation’s cultural heritage during the Great East Japan Earthquake.
At the moment, I am working as a museum curator in Miyagi Prefecture, and I feel that the networkof museums within the prefecture is very weak. It is
not readily known which curators possessed certain knowledge, or in what activities they are engaging. Currently, it is difficult for me to have a clear
idea how to mobilize required knowledge and skills
when the next disaster occurs among museums in
Miyagi Prefecture.
What I learned from my experience of the Great
East Japan Earthquake, is that interpersonal networks between cultural property owners, local people, specialists, technicians and a wide range of actors related to cultural heritage, become an
important factor when facing a disaster. The networks developed in advance save the day in times ofdisaster. I feel that over the past four years, we wereable to establish such networks in the wake of theGreat East Japan Earthquake, and develop themfurther by undertaking a range of cultural heritage
rescue activities. That concludes an overview of myexperiences. Thank you very much for your attention.
Paula Holland:
Thank you to all of the speakers for talking this afternoon. So we have exclamation marks on education, culture and disasters. That must be enough forpeople to be able to share their views and experiences. First question, please.
Kumiko Shimotsuma:
I am Kumiko Shimotsuma from the Japanese Agency of Cultural Affairs. I have a question to Erika
Hedhammar and Diane Douglas.
In today’s morning session, it was pointed outthat depending on the culture of organization andculture of people, there are different ways to under-Tokyo Strategy Meeting

stand the risks. It was also pointed out that people
tend to focus on their livelihoods and have difficulty
to understand disasters as expected by disaster organizations. I wonder if the situation in each region
or country should be approached differently, or theso-called international community should think ofgeneric ways to treat common challenges. If you
have any particular ideas on this, please share withus. This is my first question.
Secondly, I do not address this question to anyone in particular, but as Ryusuke Kodani earlier
mentioned that the experience of the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake was useful and suggestive in the response to the Great East Japan Earthquake. This isabsolutely true in Japan. Now, in your own countries, if you have some positive experiences or systematic ways of reviewing response or recovery activities of past disasters, could you please sharethem with us?
Erika Hedhammar:
From the regulatory point of view, there is a common set of rules on how to deal with disaster risk
management in Sweden. But, of course, there are
special approaches according to the different circumstances and different regions. In Sweden we
don’t have that many disasters, but some parts of
Sweden are experiencing sea-level rises, and some
do not because there is no coastline there instead,they have other specific problems. So, that’s the difference.
Diane Douglas:
Thank you for your question. I think, in the UnitedStates, the Hurricane Katrina was a great lesson formany of the disaster recovery agencies in terms ofgoing from the local to the national response. And,I think, it is still an issue in many areas in the UnitedStates, but because of Katrina we had local agencies
trying to do one thing, and then there are certain
protocols they had to go through to get states involved and to get the National Guard involved. And
there was a great delay from the time of the disasterto the time that they had real response with the National Guard coming in and providing support andwater.
One theme that has crosscut many of the papers
this morning is having the cooperation, cross-sectorial cooperation of different local governments aswell as agencies, particularly for the aid responses.
In the United States, I feel that there are a lot of
equivalent problems in the system of the disaster

preparedness. Apart from San Francisco with frequent earthquakes, local people are not reallyaware of the disasters. They expect the government
to save them, but they do not take personal responsibility for their own safety. Although appropriate
training mechanisms are in place now in many communities in the United States, most people don’ttake advantage of them. They are not aware ofthem, because they are not widely enough publicized, and so, it is still basically left to the government to come in and save people. This, of course,
leads to great expenses, and then people being really frustrated when they are not being saved intime. That is all I have to say about it.
Gabriele Weichart:
I just want to expand on what Diane Douglas said,
that there is a difference between western countries and the non-western countries. Whereas inAustria, where I come from, it is a bit similar to theUnited States that people are more and more reliant
on government and insurance companies and do
not think that they should also take some responsibilities themselves, in countries where governments have never really taken that responsibility
for the people, they are much more aware that they
have to look after themselves and their families.
But, I am not an expert on the situation in Austria. My experience comes more from Indonesia. As
I mentioned in my presentation, I am really interested in how damage is being assessed there. For
example, in the cases of the two earthquakes in Sumatra and Java, the local authorities were asked,
and they collaborated in assessing the damage. The
village heads were the ones who would say whose
house has been damaged and to what extent. And
they had three degrees of assessment: moderately
damaged, strongly damaged, or totally damaged,
and according to these three categories, owners got
a certain amount of money; it was all very standardized. That means if you had good connections withthe village head, he could get more money, or if
your relationship was not so good, you got less. I
think we also have to take that into account.
Therefore, working with local people on thegrassroots level does not necessarily mean that resources are distributed evenly. Perhaps even lessevenly because personal interests come into play. It
can be perceived from a cultural point of view as aset of traditional obligations and benefits. But froman international point of view, and the way we areused to work, the resources should be objectively− 90 −

(Session 3)

distributed, which perhaps is not the view of many
people in other parts of the world.
France Desmarais:
To comment and complement on what Diane Douglas said about people not being aware of threats, interestingly enough, one part of the Museum Emergency Program I mentioned is dedicated to asurvey, where we ask museums about their threats.
We ask them what immediate threats exist in theirvicinity and how they identify them. When we did
the survey in the Caribbean, and I’m sure, it is not
only there, most of our respondents were totallyunaware of the real threats their institutions were
facing. They were not looking beyond the typicaland obvious threats.
When we were looking at the answers to the survey, one of the answers puzzled us and we understood it only after an accident happened. A museum
said that one of the immediate threats to the museum was the marketplace right beside it, and we
could not understand how a marketplace was causing a threat. But one day, a fire erupted in the market and burned down the museum.
Coming back to the topic of cooperation. It is allabout networking and learning from your neighboring institutions in your region or locally. As Diane
Douglas was saying, knowing what your threats areis really important. It is the first thing you need to
do before you build an emergency response program.
Erika Hedhammar:
I visited an area that had a big flooding in 1979.
There were some people who wanted to build houses on that part of land, and the fire brigade had a
hard time explaining to the people that the area was
not good for building because of the flooding. Finally, they could find old photos of the flooding in
1979, which they could show to the people. I thinkthat museums and archives can play an importantrole in disaster prevention by keeping records ofwhat happened in the region in the past and showing it to people.
Giovanni Boccardi:
I once had a conversation with Margareta Wahlström, the head of UNISDR and we were talking
about how the heritage sector can link with the
DRR sector. And she made an interesting point; shesaid that because of the iconic symbolic sort of power of cultural heritage, it would have been a good
− 91 −

idea to use it to raise awareness about the disasterrisks.
I am thinking about what Terry Cannon said thatpeople do not think disasters are a problem, but
perhaps we could make them become more aware
if we raised awareness about these disaster risks
through heritage. Now I remember in this respect,
an interesting exhibition that was called London Future, a few years ago, showing Photoshop images ofWestminster Abbey and a major flood. There wasalso Buckingham Palace surrounded by a shanty
town. It was like a possible future, you know, where
London would have been completely changed byclimate change. And I think that one made a huge
impression.
My question is, since each of you has worked indifferent environments in Indonesia, in America
and in Sweden, do you think that something likethis could work to change the misperception of disaster risks in communities? And if it was the case,we could make ourselves useful to the DRR sector
with what we have to offer, which is heritage.
Paula Holland:
I’d like to put that question open to all six speakers,
if possible.
France Desmarais:
I will have to say that I hate to discuss ‘the use ofheritage’, because there is danger in such instrumentalizing. But I understand your point. It would
be the contrary–most heritage people would saythat the humanitarian relief that saves lives is usually priority, which we all understand. We know thatthey are complementary and they do not undermine each other, of course. But, I am not really comfortable with saying that we should use heritage toraise awareness on DRR. When iconic places andsites are destroyed, it does make the headlines.
That is what we see now happening in Iraq and in
Syria,
I heard somebody say last week that he wanted
to tell the Syrians that unfortunately they were notmade of brick and stone, because otherwise wewould care for them. Some people are a bit disturbed that heritage is getting so much press, andnot civilians. With such a controversy, I think it is avery dangerous game to play.
Gabriele Weichart:
Well, from the Indonesian case, it would be interesting to try it out, but with caution. I do not think mostTokyo Strategy Meetingpeople would perceive an earthquake or even a volcanic eruption as an immediate risk to their lives.
Probably, it is so around the world, with the only
exception of Japan.
Most people’s worries are more about daily survival, getting enough money or getting children
through school. Therefore, unless their daily lives,
their economic or social conditions are improved,
we cannot ask them to think about heritage andsuch things. The same goes about DRR. I would say
in the Indonesian context, this would not make agreat change. But I would assume that in Austria or
Germany it could make a difference. Especially indecision-making on where to build a house, which
is more often based on aesthetic properties of thelandscape, but not on the grounds of safety, the considerations of possible avalanches or landslides, etcetera.
Diane Douglas:
Regarding the case of the United States, it is a very
young country, so it does not have a deep cultural
heritage. If compared to Europe or Asia, its history
is quite shallow. So, I think that there is less awareness of the importance of cultural heritage, although certainly, there are enough people with fullunderstanding and appreciation of it.
In order to raise awareness of the potential disasters, rather than using cultural heritage, it would be
more liable to refer to such events in the past, forexample to show how people recovered from theflooding of the Mississippi and so on. And you can
go back far in history and show how people were
living and using the landscape at the turn of the
18th and 19th century.
Nowadays, in the United States, the understanding of disasters or the climate change is very low, sousing cultural heritage in this regard, in my opinion, would be a stretch.
Erika Hedhammar:
I think that cultural heritage institutions could definitely play a role in rising awareness in disasters.
One point in the Hyogo Framework for Action is toraise awareness of the society. The museums could
also take part in this. I think that is a good idea.
Unidentified speaker:
I think that we must be aware that there is a kind ofcultural attitude in the perception of what is a disaster.

Stefano De Caro:
I am from the Pompeii area and I worked in Pompeii all my life. Imagine that you are living in Pompeii or Herculaneum right next to Vesuvius volcano.
From the excavations in Herculaneum we knowthat all the population died suffering. They wereburned by the volcanic gas. Nevertheless, contemporary people perceive it as something that only
happened in the past. It can happen again, but maybe not to me, maybe to another generation. Not
only common people think like this. Even Goethe
once said that among the great human disasters,
Pompeii is the happiest of all.
The biggest eruptions happen in a certain periodic manner, approximately once in 2000 years. If
eruption occurs today, one million people will probably die. There was an eruption in 79 AD and in2000 BC. Nevertheless, people are continuing tolive there today.
There has been a risk management plan for Vesuvius. The regional government has advised people to evacuate from the red zone and move to thesafer area, but people preferred to stay. And so,
there should be a very strong power, because dealing with it democratically will cost too much for thewhole community. If Italy has to pay evacuation
costs in case of such an eruption, it will much worse
than the Greek crisis. So, there must be a thoroughlong-term educational effort. It is very difficult tochange this attitude of passiveness, this turningaway from the future, even despite of the tangible
testimonies of the terrible deaths people had suffered from the previous eruption.
Ryusuke Kodani:
Allow me to make a comment about the culturalproperties being used as a tool for DRR, especiallyregarding resilience. I have some expertise in thisarea because of the earthquake experience.
One illustrative case is the revival of the traditional festival with the so-called lion dance (shishimai) in one of the affected areas. A lot of money wasprovided for the recovery of the traditional equipment necessary to perform the lion dance. This
dance is performed by men, so the male populationof the community was very happy. But when we listened to public opinion in the process, we realizedthat women also had their traditional ceremony topray for the dead with rosaries called nembutsu,
which also lost all of the equipment to the tsunami,
but nobody paid attention to this. My friend bought
those rosaries for 200-300 thousand yen and donat− 92 −(Session 3)

ed them to the community. Women were really
happy, and they were able to organize the ceremony on schedule gathering especially for this purpose in the village surrounded by many kilometersof evacuated area. With tears in their eyes they
prayed for all the lives lost in this disaster.
In the case of the recovery of the intangible
properties, we tend to focus on something that isglamorous, but we have to also pay attention tosomething that is unglamorous, which is not easily
seen.
Let me present one more issue. In Japan, the local municipalities often take inventory and gather
cultural properties in one place not for displaying,but for storing. Then, one of these places with anenormous amount of materials was drifted away bytsunami and flown in. Simply put, these materials
contained the forgotten cultural knowledge of theentire region. What was the value of it – even local
people could not tell. And then, we had a rescue operation, restored these materials a little bit, and now
we are able to display them to people.
My other friend, who is a curator, decided to display these materials. He had to do it in a tent, because in this area there was not one building left
standing due to the disaster. But still, he wanted toshow these cultural properties to people, because,
while they may have been forgotten, they wereunique to this region. Seeing this, people started to
exchange memories, which is an important step on
the way to recovery. Although, we may never beable to restore that pre-disaster community,
through those cultural properties we are able to replant their memories. This exposition fulfills thetask of attaching new meaning to the once forgotten
materials. I think this is very important.
Let me go back to the question that is central toour discussion of how we can contribute to the resilience of communities through the DRR activities for
cultural properties. I think that the small things thatrun through our culture and history are really important because they are symbolic of their lives. In
relation to the example of Mississippi River andPompeii, I wanted to show you that by reflecting thenormal life, cultural properties could be the carriers of communities’ memories.
Nagtsho Dorji:
With regard to the question by Giovanni Boccardi
about using an iconic cultural heritage for raisingawareness on DRR, I would like to present my experience with our most significant heritage, Wangdue− 93 −Phodrang Dzong, that got burned down in 2002. We
wanted to do the same scheme of raising awareness, but what we realized in the process was that
because it was important, it received a lot of support and funding, and rather than raising awarenessfor DRR, our focus had shifted to trying to build
something even more iconic, and trying to outdo
what we already had.
So, what we realized in the process is that rather
than using such iconic cultural heritage, it is more
important to focus on the cultural heritage that iscloser to people, especially in the rural context,
where the communities thrive and work towards
becoming more resilient to disasters.
Randolph Langenbach:I would like to address a question to Nagtsho Dorji.
I was very interested in your presentation on Bhutan and remembering my trip there. If I am not mistaken, for so many years with the king’s instruction,
the country was kept very closed to preserve the
Tibetan Buddhist culture of the place including thebuilding the structures.
In recent years, it opened up and all of a sudden
there is this whole wave of concrete constructionthat had come in, and particularly in Thimphu, but
in some other cities too. And there was the requirement by government that it maintain the kind of
Bhutanese look with projected timber frontages.
They were no longer pointed to the South. They
were just stuck onto the buildings. I am not trying
to demean the whole genesis of the original construction, but at least it preserved the traditional
look. I mean, if you look out the windows here,
those buildings could be anywhere in the world, but
in Bhutan they really did look Bhutanese.
I’m curious if there was ever any research on the
structural integrity of the traditional forms of construction in Bhutan. Can you tell if there was a research project, either mounted through UNESCO,or through a research organization, or a university,or elsewhere? With some international funding
there could be a study of this plus earthen architecture in other countries as well. One of my colleagues
does this in Peru very thoroughly and at a very
high-level. Maybe there could be resurgence at the
local level by people themselves to turn back to thisform of construction? I would like you to address
this dialectic between ‘it has got to be modern’ andthe ‘traditional is modern’. Thank you.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Nagtsho Dorji:
Thank you for your interesting question. As you
said, if there was enough research done that reallyprovided us insights that using traditional way ofconstructing is better, I think there would definitely
be effect. Even at this moment also, I think we areready to go back and see how it was before and try
to improve. I do not say everything that we had was
the best, I think it has its flaws, but we are ready to
go back and rebuild it the way it traditionally shouldhave been.
We are a very small country and I think we canstill afford to work on it. Of recent, there is a new
government initiative, and we have started to takeoff some research in collaboration with ACA andthe National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo. As you pointed out, the buildings constructed after 1960s, especially after we opened thedoor, they would continue to serve as an example ofwhat is not to be done.
And these projected windows that you were talking about, I think they are disastrous when it comesto an earthquake. I think they would surely kill people in the process. And I think that is what we aretrying to overcome with research.
I again urge for an education system, because
when we talk with professionals in heritage, they do
not necessarily come after high school, they arenormally at much higher level, masters level. It ismainly after high school education what is most important, because that is when we have these young
professionals come out to the market in search forwork. When they are not knowledgeable, that iswhen it leads to a lot of uninformed decisions thatare made at the government level and have a large
impact on the overall country.
Joseph King:We have been talking about getting the heritage
sector better connected to the DRR sector. But I
would pose the question that I am not entirely surethat the heritage sector itself is united and is working together.
I am talking about the people dealing with movable heritage, people dealing with immovable heritage, people dealing with intangible heritage and I
could give many examples of where these do notwork together. At the international level, I would
say, notwithstanding the existence of Blue Shield, I
am not entirely sure how effective that is in terms ofintegration. I would even assume that the natural
heritage is also like that, which is something that
the World Heritage deals with.
Kanefusa Masuda:
We have discussed many deep issues, and it’s very
difficult to summarize them. I hope we can further
develop our discussions in the group discussion
from now on and in the tomorrow’s session. Thankyou.
Paula Holland:This should bring us to the end of the session.
Could I invite everybody to thank the speakers anddiscussants here today? Thank you very much.

− 94 −

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Session 4
Preparedness for Response, Recovery andReconstruction (Part I)−How to Translate “Build Back Better” for Cultural Heritage−[Facilitators] Aparna Tandon, Akatsuki Takahashi
Contents

S4.indd 95

Presentation(4-1)
Documentation for Preparedness, Response, and Recovery

Scott Branting

Presentation（4-2）
The ICORP Disaster Database and its Importance for
the Risk Management of Cultural Heritage

Xavier Romão
Esmeralda Paupério

Presentation(4-3）
Cooperation in Rescue and First Aid Activities

Corine Wegener

Presentation（4-4）
The Blue Shield as an Important Mechanism for Creatingand Maintaining Networks of Heritage Professionals for DRR

Peter Stone

Roundtable Discussion

Naoko Kobayashi,
Yohsei Kohdzuma,
Yuji Kurihara,
Fredrik Rosen

16/10/25 11:30

(Session 4)

Presentation (4-1)
Documentation for Preparedness, Response, and Recovery
Scott Branting
Director for Geospatial Initiatives at ASOR;
Project Director for Heritage Mapping and Data Integration
with the Syrian Heritage Initiative

This topic grows out of a project that I co-direct at
the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR).
The project was developed within a collaborative
framework with the United States Department ofState to monitor the activity of groups within Syria
and Iraq during the current conflict in order totrack cultural heritage destruction in both of theseareas. As part of this project, which has been underway for the past seven months, there was a criticalneed to find a system to integrate together the variety of different incident reports the project receives,
the satellite imagery that is being analyzed, as wellas other sources of information. The project has
also sought a system that will enable sharing of allof this information amongst the larger cultural heritage community, as well as with people on the
ground who might be in a position at some future
point to do something. Hopefully, at a point after the
conflict, this system will also play an important rolein the critical reconstruction phase.
In trying to identify a system to do this, theproject was pointed towards the Arches cultural
heritage inventory system. Arches is an open
source heritage inventory and management systemthat has been developed by the World Monuments
Fund and the Getty Conservation Institute, together with Farallon Geographics in San Francisco. So
far, the ASOR Syrian Heritage Initiative Project has
found it to be fairly effective in terms of what it
hopes to do. Version 3 of the software is in the process of being released, and so we will be looking alittle bit at what Arches is and then look at two examples of how it can be used. The first example is ajust-launched website using Arches version 3, HistoricPlacesLA.org, which has been created by theCity of Los Angeles and the Getty Conservation Institute. The second example, which I will go into ina bit more depth, is the ASOR Syrian Heritage Initiative (ASOR SHI) Project, including how it is starting to incorporate Arches as a platform for sharing
and analyzing data.
So, first let me introduce the Arches system,
even though some of you may be aware of it fromsome of its earlier incarnations. It originally began− 97 −

as the MEGA-Jordan Project that was instituted
within Jordan to look at cultural heritage management on a countrywide scale. It continues to function in this capacity in Jordan. It then had a brieftransition into MEGA-Iraq, and from there developed into the Arches heritage inventory and management system. Arches began with version 1 andis in the process of releasing version 3. Throughout
this development trajectory a great number of improvements have made the software more accessible and globally applicable.
A key factor in the development of Arches is its
emphasis on being standards-based. It incorporates
the core data index to historical buildings and monuments of architectural heritage, the International
Council of Museums (ICOM) International Committee for Documentation’s (CIDOC) Core Data
Standard for Archaeological Sites and Monuments,
and the merger of these two for immovable heritagethat is in the process of being finalized, the CIDOC
International Core Data Standard for Archaeological and Architectural Heritage. It also incorporates
the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model, in order
to allow the integration of a variety of different aspects of cultural heritage, and has an excellent
graphical interface in version 3 that allows users tomanipulate the graph node architecture to see how
the linkages are constructed and to explore the impact of altering some of those linkages. It also incorporates Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards as well. The use of these standards will allow
enhanced portability of data from Arches, as well as
the ability for the data to be shared within wider collaborations. It also will lengthen the longevity andsustainability of the software.
A second key factor in the development of Arches has been a commitment to accessibility. With its
web accessibility, different ASOR SHI partners will
be able to access it around the globe. It will be accessed on a variety of different servers that are currently being set up: one that will be publicly available, one that will see a restricted usage among theexpert community, and then one that will serve theproject itself. Working with cultural heritage in theTokyo Strategy Meeting

context of an active conflict situation, one must take
into account aspects of modern warfare such as cyber warfare. The project is well aware that servers
may be hacked and it is implementing measures tokeep inventories from falling into the wrong hands
and being used for the destruction of cultural heritage. These measures include physically isolating
different servers and working to secure them.
A third factor in the development of Arches is its
increasing customizability. Version 3 was constructed as a platform upon which a variety of different
user groups could then build a variety of different
applications. Discussions have been held with othergroups that are working on cultural heritage in Syria and Iraq to try and build cross-platform tools thatwill allow the different projects to undertake controlled crowd-sourcing or other forms of collaborations with partners in other parts of the world.
A final factor driving the development of Arches
is that it is freely available and open-source. One
can download it from archesproject.org, install it,
explore what it can do, and use it free of cost. This
only enhances the accessibility of the software.
The first illustration of the use of version 3 ofArches that I would like to introduce to you is therecently launched HistoricPlacesLA.org. This
project was done by the Getty Conservation Institute and the City of Los Angeles. I was not involvedin this project, but was asked by the Getty Conservation Institute team to speak about this briefly.
This project, in juxtaposition to the second illustration, was developed prior to a disaster situation. Itshows what can be done when one can collect inventories ahead of time and prepare in case of a future disaster. When a disaster occurs, the City of
Los Angeles will be in a better position to move forward with cultural heritage disaster recovery because of this project, both on the immediate emergency level as well as in the long-term.
HistoricPlacesLA.org launched on February 24,
2015. It brings into Arches version 3 the cultural
heritage information from the city of Los Angeles. It
provides a platform for the general public to accessthis information, as they need to, as well as for the
information to be managed by the City of Los Angeles moving forward. It has effective scaling that canaggregate cultural heritage sites together into a
more understandable view and it also allows a user
to do a variety of searches, including both textual
and spatial queries.
It offers a suite of tools that allow one to create
and use this data. One can bring in geospatial data,

as you can see here, through a variety of means.
There is a geocoding tool for inputting an address
to locate that address on the map or one could upload GPS coordinates. This can be overlain on
georeferenced base maps so that one can then digitize into the database a footprint for that particularpiece of cultural heritage. At the same time it integrates both a mapping component and a database
component for the management of cultural heritage. One can drag and drop additional data, such as
photographs or text based information, into the database. Reports can be created for different queried
locations. In the event of a disaster, responders willknow where things are and how their preservation
could best be addressed. It is accessible to both thepolice and fire departments in Los Angeles and canbe used to better understand the impact of choicesthat they may be forced to make within a smallscale or large-scale disaster event.
In addition to HistoricPlacesLA.org, I’ll now
speak briefly about the ASOR SHI Project that is
also making use of Arches. This project has various
goals including: documenting damage, pulling together inventories for the locations of cultural heritage sites in Syria and northern Iraq, monitoringthese cultural heritage sites, assessing the impactof damage to these sites in the current conflict, promoting global awareness of this danger by sharing
this information, and beginning to prepare for what
can be done as we eventually move into the postdisaster and recovery phase.
There are a wide variety of different tasks thatthe project is undertaking in collaboration with theUnited States Department of State within this current twelve month period. Many of the tasks that I
will be talking about are in the portion of the projectwith which I work most closely. These tasks include: the collection of inventories of cultural heritage sites, the analysis of satellite imagery to document damage, the verification of reported damage
when possible, and linking that up with informationfrom other project sources within the weekly reports available on the www.asor-syrianheritage.org
website. I will focus a little more heavily, therefore,on the geospatial side of the project, but I do wanteveryone to be aware that many more team members are doing many more activities than what I will
be able to talk about in the brief time that I have today.
To further these activities the project has been
granted special access to satellite images throughthe collaboration with the United States Depart− 98 −(Session 4)

ment of State. As Director of the Center for Ancient
Middle Eastern Landscapes at the Oriental Instituteof the University of Chicago, I dreamt for many
years of being able to access large quantities of upto-date imagery to look for archaeological sites orto assess cultural heritage damage. This ability toaccess satellite imagery on a large-scale has really
only come to fruition this year with the ASOR SHI
Project.
The cultural heritage damage seen in these satellite images, taken of Syria and Iraq during the current conflict, is deplorable. Intentional cultural heritage damage is being used as a tool both to create
terror and to move populations. As an archaeologistof the ancient Near East, I know that the use of terror and cultural heritage damage in conflict is nothing new. Comparable techniques were used, though
without modern explosives, throughout the past. A
good example of this, from what is now the verysame areas of Syria and Iraq, would be campaigns
by Neo-Assyrian kings. However, in the current
conflict this is being paired with increasingly sophisticated online marketing, branding, and recruitment efforts. The Islamic State has been actively
publicizing cultural heritage destruction events after expanding into and consolidating their power
within new regions.
The satellite images that the project is using toverify this destruction have come from a range ofdifferent satellite platforms and different companies. Images, sometimes taken as little as twentyfour hours ago, can be compared with earlier images from days, weeks, or months ago to provide an
overview of what is happening and to allow an assessment as to the extents of the damage. While
this sounds simple, it requires the management of alarge amount of digital imagery and effective communications between team members doing theanalysis. The access that the project has to this imagery is limited to a few select people that havebeen vetted and permitted access. So a tool like
Arches, which can allow the project to better coordinate and share geospatial information within awider group of experts, is something that was identified early on as a necessity.
Here are a few examples of the sort of work thegeospatial side of the project does on a daily basis.
Satellite images can be compared of downtown
Aleppo, around the Citadel of Aleppo, a World Heritage Site. Here is how it appeared from satellite on
October 31st of 2013 (Fig. 1). This can be comparedwith a new satellite image taken on December 15th
− 99 −

Fig.1: Digital Globe satellite image of the Citadel of Aleppo andvicinity in Syria on October 31, 2013

Fig.2: Digital Globe satellite image of the Citadel of Aleppo andvicinity on December 15, 2014. Note the increase in damage tostructures around the citadel.

of 2014, a little over a year later (Fig. 2). A massive
increase can be seen in the amount of destruction
across this portion of Aleppo, with much of the larger scale destruction being caused by tunnel bombs.
The project can use series of satellite images of thesame area to not only detail what has occurred, but
to also try and anticipate where future cultural heritage destruction may occur. It can also pull this information together with other sources pertaining to
the cultural heritage that has been impacted, to assess what exactly has been lost and what types ofreconstruction work might be possible in the future.
Another example of the project’s work is monitoring the looting of archaeological sites. Various
groups in the conflict have participated in looting,either directly by members of the group or by individuals who pay the group a certain percentage ofthe money that make from the sale of antiquities.
This satellite image is of the site of Mari on Septem-

Tokyo Strategy Meetingber 7th of 2012 (Fig. 3). Little looting is evident inthis image. However, by this image taken in March
25th of 2014 (Fig. 4), some areas are displaying a
lunar-like landscape, pockmarked by numerous
looting holes, that is typical of large-scale looting.
By this image, taken on November 11th of 2014 (Fig.
5), one can see an acceleration of this looting that
seems to coincide with the movement of the Islamic

Fig.3: Digital Globe satellite image of the archaeological site ofMari in Syria on September 7, 2012. Little evidence for looting canbe found in this image.

Fig.4: Digital Globe satellite image of Mari on March 25, 2014. Increased evidence for looting can be found in the highlighted boxes.

Fig.5: Digital Globe satellite image of Mari on November 11, 2014.
Much larger areas of looting can be found in the highlighted boxes.

State into the area over the summer of 2014. The
project is also looking at the infrastructure of cultural heritage destruction, features such as new
roadways or structures that suddenly appear whilelooting is underway. One particular new structurenear Mari looks suspiciously like a storage andprocessing facility for trucks to drive into and be
loaded with antiquities on their way to market. Information such as this is crucial for providing a basic understanding of what is happening, where andwhen, within these criminal enterprises.
Drawing together incidents such as this on adaily basis, the ASOR SHI Project is able to gain abroad-scale perspective of what is happening acrossthe entire region. Over a six month period, up to theend of 2014, the project had created an inventory ofcultural heritage sites that numbered 3,766. Thishas been expanded in the months since to just over
4,000. This includes both built heritage within cities
as well as in more isolated locations. This inventory
enables the project to do damage assessments oneach of these locations from satellite imagery, without having to expect people on the ground to put
their lives in jeopardy in order to collect this information. The results can also be overlain on information about the ongoing conflict produced by otherorganizations. For instance, the assessments can beoverlain on top of data derived from a maps published by the ACAPS SNAP-Syria Project to get avery rough idea of the relation of cultural heritage
damage present within areas of different groups’
control in the current conflict. Of course, one needs
to exercise caution in drawing conclusions about
hard boundaries of control in what is a very fluid
conflict situation. Combining data in these ways allows for preliminary ideas about patterns in cultural
heritage damage to be drawn, patterns that can betracked over time as more information and satellite
imagery becomes available.
The ASOR SHI Project already shares static
maps, images, and reports on a weekly basis. Butplans are in the works to use Arches to share thismore dynamically, at least with certain groups ofcollaborators. Customized base maps can be uploaded and used for overlays, as can satellite images. This should provide a platform for comparing
imagery from different time periods among thebroader project participants.
Arches also has a range of different search capabilities built in for sorting through this data. Textbased and semantic search can be done using a text
bar. Geographical queries and spatial searches can− 100 −

(Session 4)

be done by drawing on the base map, and buffering
around given features can be added to the spatial
query. In addition, there are temporal search tools,
with slider bars that can be linked up to different
fields. The project is looking forward to using thisfor both querying the date of cultural heritage destruction and the dating information pertaining to
the construction of that cultural heritage. Users canaccess the search results from these diverse querying tools and can then pull up reports about the resultant cultural heritage sites with a simple click
within the map interface.
Finally, Arches has several features that the
ASOR SHI Project is particularly looking forward tousing. Arches has incorporated a wizard based system for entering information about condition assessments for cultural heritage elements. The site
assessments that are a major part of the ASOR SHI
Project’s workflows should benefit from this fea-

− 101 −

ture. Arches also keeps track of all the changes thatare made to the database, allowing project to go
back and view the changes that have been madeand roll back changes if needed. With a team distributed around the world, this will greatly add in
the management of the ASOR SHI Project’s growing database. Assisting as well in this are security
features including login-based privileges assigned
at the entity level, allowing quite a lot of flexibility inassigning permissions among diverse participants.
Hopefully, as the current conflict in Syria and Iraq
eventually reaches an end, these and other tools in
Arches will be at work behind the scenes enabling
first response teams on the ground to securely andeffectively coordinate their findings with the datathat has been compiled by projects such as the
ASOR SHI throughout this long and terrible conflict.

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Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Presentation (4-2)
The ICORP Disaster Database and its Importancefor the Risk Management of Cultural Heritage
Xavier Romão
University of Porto - Faculty of Engineering, Porto, Portugal

Esmeralda Paupério
University of Porto - Construction Institute, Porto, Portugal

Introduction
Existing international frameworks and programsfor disaster risk reduction (DRR) emphasize theneed to develop and implement measures to reduce
hazard exposure and vulnerability to disasters.
Among other aspects, current DRR initiatives recognize the importance of cultural heritage and its
irreplaceable value for society, thus underlining theneed to assess the impact that potential hazards
may have on the built cultural heritage. Developing
adequate risk assessment and management processes are fundamental towards this end and it is
known that systematically collected and robust disaster damage and loss data are essential for suchprocesses. The development of systems, models
and methodologies to collect and handle such data
should, therefore, be a worldwide priority.
Existing disaster loss data recording initiatives
such as the EM-DAT/CRED, SIGMA/SwissRe,
NAT-CAT/MünichRe or DesInventar/UNISDR databases are undoubtedly important sources of information in terms of the damages and losses that occurred over worldwide disasters. Recording suchdata is known to be useful for the purpose of loss
accounting, forensic analysis of disasters and disaster risk modelling. For example, this data can provide an objective baseline for vulnerability/risk assessment as well as for mitigation priority setting
and decision making. However, the data recordedby these databases does not include damages andlosses to cultural heritage. Therefore, without thisimportant component, current loss estimation procedures are not able to provide a sound and comprehensive quantification of disaster impacts.
One of the challenges for the disaster risk management sector is to broaden loss assessments toinclude losses to cultural heritage and the relation
between them and society (e.g. economic losses in
tourism as a result of damaged cultural heritage).
Currently, there is no systematic collection of data
about hazardous events and their impacts on cultural heritage properties. Existing data on damages
and losses to cultural heritage is scattered among

various agencies (national and international) without any coherence and coordination. Furthermore,
no standardized methods and tools have been developed for cultural heritage disaster data collection
until now. Therefore, specific approaches and methods are required to address these issues.
The ICORP Disaster Database for cultural heritage
Given the previous discussion, the International
Committee on Risk Preparedness of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICORP/ICOMOS) started to develop a loss database specifically devised for cultural heritage. The databaseaims to provide a standard for loss and damage recording in cultural heritage supported by international institutions such as UNESCO, ICOMOS, ICCROM or ICOM, as well as other organi-zations
dealing with cultural heritage.
The main purpose of the ICORP Disaster Database is to record the occurrence of damages andlosses in worldwide immovable cultural heritage
properties caused by hazardous events. The main
objective of this initiative is to develop an efficient
tool that will provide institutions managing and protecting cultural heritage with:• a systematic and standardized recording of cultural heritage disaster-related data, from bothnatural and man-made hazards;• a reliable accounting of cultural heritage losses;• adequate data for the analysis of disaster trends
and risk mitigation needs in cultural heritage.
The hazardous events recorded by the databaserange from small-scale events that only affect a single cultural heritage property to large and widespread ones that affect a larger number of heritage
assets. The database records basic identificationand information about the main hazardous event(and secondary events that may have been triggered by the main event) such as the type/subtype,
GLIDE number, geographical information (country, continent, location, latitude and longitude),temporal information (start/end date, local time),− 102 −

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(Session 4)(Fig. 1). For each event, the database records information about the cultural heritage properties affected by the event. This includes basic descriptions about the cultural heritage properties before
they have been damaged along with a description of
the damages and losses they suffered. The damage
description can be illustrated using additional media such as photos, videos or reports that can be
uploaded into the database. Each cultural heritage
property affected by an event is assigned with an
identification type (single/multiple unit), a heritage
category (UNESCO World Heritage, properties
protected by the Hague Convention, listed national
heritage, IUCN protected areas, properties of local
significance), several property classes, a value(qualitative) and one or more construction materials (only for built properties).
The output module of the ICORP Disaster Database is currently under development and will provide adequate information for the analysis of disaster trends and risk mitigation needs in cultural

heritage. This module will enable the developmentof graphical and/or numerical outputs such as• damage levels in cultural heritage by type of hazardous event (e.g. floods, earthquake, fire, war
con-flicts,…), by continent, by country, by year,
by type of property;• several cultural heritage loss indicators by type of
hazardous event, by continent, by country, by
year, by type of property;• a cultural heritage post-event resilience index bytype of hazardous event, by continent, by country,
by year, by type of property.
The ICORP Disaster Database and the cultural
heritage risk management cycle
The development of the ICORP Disaster Databaseis particularly important given the possibility of using the data it collects in different steps of the cultural heritage risk management cycle (Fig. 2).
Performing a detailed risk assessment of cultural
heritage properties is often a difficult task, given

Fig.1: Main screen of the ICORP Disaster Database where the main hazardous event is identified.

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B5_英語2段組

Century Old Style_Regular_ 9point

Tokyo Strategy Meetingthe complexity and the multidimensional value of
cultural heritage. In these situations, using additional damage and loss data from past events recorded by disaster databases can be particularly
helpful. Furthermore, the data collected by the disaster databases is also relevant for the analysis anddecision-making step, as well as for the risk mitigation and treatment step. Information on past experiences can provide valuable guidance for the definition of the approaches that are best suited to protect

a certain cultural heritage asset or to create awareness regarding the need to develop new risk mitigation measures.
In sum, the ICORP Disaster Database will enable the widespread dissemination of important information about past events which, in turn, will help
in the development and preparation of better heritage-focused disaster mitigation strategies for the
future.

Fig.2: The ICORP Disaster Database within the risk management cycle for cultural heritage− 104 −

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(Session 4)

Presentation (4-3)
Cooperation in Rescue and First Aid Activities
Corine Wegener
Cultural Heritage Preservation Officer,
Smithsonian Institution

I am the Cultural Heritage Preservation Officer at
the Smithsonian. I have only been at my job for ashort time since 2012, but I have learned a lot about
the Smithsonian’s role as our national museum. It is
partly supported by the federal government andpartly privately supported. We’d like to thank our
British colleagues for James Smithson, an 18th-century British citizen who died never having visited
the United States, but left his fortune to the US government for the creation of an institute of learning.
Many people do not really know the scope andscale of the Smithsonian, and I confess I did not either until I actually came to work there. We have 19
museums, 9 research centers, and the National Zoo
is part of our collection as well. Some of the mostpopular destinations are the National Air and Space
Museum, the National Museum of Natural History,
and the National Museum of American History. We
also have far flung places like the Smithsonian
Tropical Research Institute in Panama. We have an
Astrophysical Observatory that we share and control with Harvard University, etcetera. So it’s a little
bit mind blowing, the scope of it. We have millions
and millions of objects in our collections, a budgetof $1 billion, and yet we still struggle with the sameproblems I think that everybody else does, like disaster risk reduction and disaster response planningfor our collections.
All that said, I would like to say a little bit about
why I call this talk “Calling all Partners.” It’s essentially been my experience that partners are whatenable you to do for the type of disaster response
missions we are discussing. No matter how big
your institution is, you always need partners. And I
have learned that one of the most important things
that one can do, and we may disparage it because it
seems like meetings do not get a lot done sometimes, but there is power in calling meetings and I’ll
talk a little bit more about that.
Let me now talk about the Haiti earthquake took
place on January 12, 2010. A 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the island of Haiti, centered in the area ofthe town of Léogâne, which is about 20 miles from
Port-au-Prince. But after that, there were more than
− 105 −

52 after-shocks over many, many days and weeks,
and we estimate – I mean, we will never really know
how many people died on that terrible day – but estimates range from around 130,000, 140,000, all theway up to 250,000, depending on whose statistics
you read.
More than 1 million people were displaced bythis earthquake. As the President of the US Committee of the Blue Shield, a fairly young organization mainly focused United States ratification of the1954 Hague Convention, we were a little bit taken
aback realizing that many Blue Shield organizations
are charged with trying to provide some sort ofnatural disaster response as well. Knowing that theisland of Haiti was just an hour’s flight off of thecoast of Florida, we realized that we should try tofigure out what was going on with regard to Haiti’scultural heritage. Knowing that there was no way
we could get into Haiti under the emergency circumstances, we waited, and we watched, and we
had a meeting.
In February of that same year, the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield called a meeting at the American Association of Museums headquarters inWashington, D.C. I and several other people fromBlue Shield came, but we also called upon all government agencies that we thought might havesomething to do with Haiti. We also called upon lotsof non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – professional organizations like the American Institutefor Conservation, the American Library Association, etcetera – to try to get an idea of what people
might be doing. We had representatives from US
ICOMOS and from US COM. There were about 30
people in the room. Somebody suggested that I invite the Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture from the Smithsonian Institution, and I
thought, wow, that would be great if somebody that
big and important would come. And he did.
We went around the room to see what plans every organization had to provide an emergency response to Haiti. ICOMOS had some plans to go to
the island, I know, and Blue Shield had some plans,
but so far nobody had managed to do it. None of theTokyo Strategy Meeting

US interagency organizations had any plans to deal
with cultural heritage. I am especially sorry to
throw my friends from USAID under the bus, butthey were kind of shocked at the notion that wewould even consider a plan, and this was a monthafter the earthquake.
What happened next was pretty exciting for me.
The delegate from the Smithsonian was Richard
Kurin, who is now my boss, and he told me, he wasreceiving calls from Haiti every day. He had worked
with Haitian colleagues in 2004, during the Folklife
Festival that the Smithsonian puts on every year
and many were still serving in the Ministry of Culture in Haiti. They were calling Richard and asking
if the Smithsonian could help them with the heritage recovery efforts.
We had a lot of salvage to do. We had a lot ofdamaged art. See here the Center of Haitian Art,
which is just one example. I didn’t have enoughslides to show you all of the things I wanted to today, but this is basically the museum housing paintings from the Haitian Renaissance of the 1940s and1950s, up to some of the very famous Haitian contemporary artists of today (Fig. 1).

Fig.1: Centre d’Art – Port-au-Prince ©Smithonian Institution

Thousands of these paintings were buried in the
rubble of the museum gingerbread-style woodenbuilding. While this type of architecture is famous
for its resiliency, it still did not withstand the shocksof the earthquake.
We had several projects like saving the murals ofHoly Trinity Episcopal church and several private
collections that we tried to help because they arevery important to Haiti’s cultural history. So basically, we were looking at some big problems. Bylate February, Smithsonian set up an assessment
team to travel to Haiti. As soon as commercial air

flights were available, we went to meet with members of the Haitian Ministry of Culture and several
other private organizations to see what we could do
to help and to carry out a quick assessment. We
worked in coordination with the US Department ofState and with the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince,
who provided support to us. We were able to meetwith members of the US military who were in
charge of humanitarian aid operations to see whatkind of support they might be able to provide for us– tents, generators, a place to do triage for damaged
cultural heritage, etcetera.
We made a lot of connections; then, we made another trip in March, where we were able to find abuilding to serve as our Cultural Recovery Center.
The Center was located in a building in an undamaged compound that had formerly housed theUNDP.
We hired a Haitian staff – our center manager
was Olsen Jean Julien, a former Minister of Culture.
Olsen knew the landscape and was able to quickly
assemble a staff. One of the first things we did wascall on our partners at ICCROM because we knewthat they could provide a really quick two or three
week First Aid for Cultural Heritage course.
By the time we finished, we had a large teamworking at the center, and we had conservators
coming in on a regular basis. Our first really big
group of conservators came in June and we opened
the center for business. It was a pretty exciting day.
Now, that’s not exactly emergency response – ittook months – but this was the first time we had
tried to do anything of that scale.
We were able to do it because we had a lot of support back home. The Smithsonian went to its partners and agencies of the U.S. government. While
we do not have a Ministry of Culture in the UnitedStates, we do have governmental organizations
with some of the same functions. We have the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National
Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment
for the Humanities, and the President's Committee
on the Arts and the Humanities.
The great thing about the President’s Committee is they have a board of private members that included the president of a group called the Broadway League who realized how important it was after
9/11 to get Broadway back up and running. They
said that’s what New Yorkers needed; they needed
to know that they could go back to their town andsee arts, see the theater, feel like they were trying
to get back to the new normal. They felt strongly− 106 −

(Session 4)that they could provide that kind of support for Haiti, and they made it so that every ticket purchased
for the theater on Broadway for a time was donatedto this cause, and that gave us our first $250,000 to
get started.
So those were all our partners. But the mostcritical partners were the Haitians themselves, ofcourse. They needed to drive the process. They
needed to stand there and do the triage – to decide
what to save, what is the most important. Also, theHaitian Ministry of Culture really needed to workthrough all their sectors to be able to provide thesupport and the buy-in that we needed.
Our participants were the staff of the various institutions. They did that first response – they salvaged a lot of those paintings out of the rubble – andhere they are stabilizing, now that they have equipment and a place to re-house them. They are doing
the work. There were more than 3000 paintings under that rubble, and they were able to salvage quite
a few of them. They were helped by a Japanese military engineer unit that was part of the UN Peacekeeping mission in Haiti.
A number of really exciting objects were recovered from the rubble of just that one institution onthat day. You can see here, Stephanie Hornbeck
who was our lead conservator on the project (Fig.
2). She basically lived off and on in Haiti for over 18
months. I think the Japanese soldiers were excited
to be part of the salvage operation.

Fig.2: Salvage operation at Centre D’Art in Haiti with help fromJapanese UN Peacekeepers

We had a number of projects running simultaneously - over the 18-month project we trained 150
Haitian colleagues in basic collections management, emergency planning, response and recovery,
and basic conservation methods. We brought a lot− 107 −

of equipment into Haiti; we brought generators, andwe brought all types of conservation equipment. We
even brought a vacuum table for paintings that was
hard to ship. Over that period of time, we estimate
we stabilized approximately 30,000 objects of Haitian history, art, or culture.
All the equipment was left behind and now Quisqueya University has become our new partner in
Pétionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince. They arebuilding on to their university to start a conservation training center. All of our equipment is going
there, and we are fortunate to have funding fromthe Ben Stiller Foundation to do that project.
USAID finally came through for us. The Smithsonian received a small percentage of the Congressional fund for Haitian humanitarian response earmarked just for cultural recovery, which is the firsttime that has ever happened in USAID to a disaster
scenario. If you want to learn more about thatproject, we have a book you can download the PDF
online. It is called Saving Haiti's Heritage, and it isat haiti.si.edu, if you’re interested.
After the Haiti project the Smithsonian staff
asked ourselves what we learned and how we could
potentially respond better and faster next time? We
now have a Smithsonian program to provide emergency response for cultural heritage in the US andabroad. I came to the Smithsonian in 2012, the day
after Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast. That is astory for another day, but needless to say I spent myfirst month pretty much consumed with domestic
issues.
In the spring of 2013, though, we were all verymuch concerned, as many of us were, about the
Civil War in Syria. I had been involved since basically the beginning of the Civil War in creating a
heritage inventory of Syrian sites, working with lotsof archaeological colleagues who were part of theBlue Shield in the United States. We had provided
that information to our Defense Intelligence Agency in case the US should become involved in theconflict and do some potential bombing and targeting there.
Up to that point, that’s basically all we had beenable to accomplish. But in the spring of 2013 weheld a meeting on Syria. So again, it’s the importance of meetings. We invited anybody and everybody that we could think of in the US who might
possibly be interested – in the government, in
academia, in the archaeological community, theprofessional cultural heritage community – and we
had a meeting at the Smithsonian. Participants

Tokyo Strategy Meetingwere from Department of Defense, State Department, USAID, and UNESCO (New York); academics from University of Pennsylvania and Princeton
University, among others; and we also had the Syrian expat community living in the United States.
That was where I first met my colleagues working on the SHOSI Project, Safeguarding the Heritage of Syria and Iraq. We have three areas: emergency workshops, documentation and recording,and research. With funding from the Kaplan Fund,we were able to start working with these groups
and make a plan for what we could actually do –some kind of small project on the ground to support
our colleagues in Syria, who are working in opposition controlled areas. They are people, in manycases, who used to work for the Syrian Government, but had chosen the opposition side and were
now trying to protect cultural heritage sites in Syria, at great risk to themselves(Fig. 3).

Fig3: SHOSI project for emergency training for Syrian colleagues
who work in opposition territory.

We organized a workshop for these colleagues.
They requested information about emergency
packing and crating of collections that had been indamaged buildings and had been evacuated. People
were keeping them in their homes and at various
places, and they also wanted to learn more about
how to protect immovable cultural heritage. So webrought my colleague, Robert Patterson from the
National Museum of the American Indian, to teach.
Dr. Salam al-Kuntar, an archaeologist from Syria
now at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Amr
al-Azm, also from Syria, helped organize the training. We had about 14 Syrian participants. They
were also able to teach us a lot about what they’vebeen doing to protect cultural heritage and have an
opportunity to talk with each other. Many of themhad not seen each other since the conflict began,
and they were in this safe place where they could
work together.
After the workshop, we purchased packing supplies, equipment, and tools, which the participants
took back across the border into Syria to help themin their work. Since then we’ve had several reequipping missions, culminating in our project tosafeguard and stabilize the Ma'arra Museum. It
may seem a little strange to advertise that we haveworked to stabilize this museum, but our Syrian colleagues were very adamant that they wanted tohave a good news story for a change – not just stories about how their heritage has been destroyed,
but how Syrians care about their heritage and wantto save it. They have sandbagged the fabulous Byzantine mosaics collections the museum is famousfor (Fig. 4).

Fig.4: SHOSI project to stabilize and protect Ma’arra Mosaic Museum in Syria.

The research component of SHOSI is using satellite imagery to document damage to sites in Syria.
But unlike some of the other projects, which arevery much about figuring out what the damage is,this is more of a longitudinal research project. We
have a National Science Foundation grant to planscientific research into the root causes of intentional destruction of cultural heritage during armed
conflict. Working with the American Association for
the Advancement of Science and Penn Museum
and the Smithsonian, a lot of GIS experts are doing
the analysis. But we’re also creating a researchcommunity, approaching academics around theworld – political scientists, anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians – to see if we can discoverways that we can better protect cultural heritage inthe future.
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(Session 4)

Presentation (4-4)
The Blue Shield as an Important Mechanism for Creating and Maintaining Networks of
Heritage Professionals for Disaster Risk ReductionPeter Stone
Secretary,Blue Shield International,
Newcastle University, UK

Introduction
It is usually taken as an inevitable consequence ofarmed conflict and environmental disaster that cultural property will be damaged and destroyed.
While this is certainly true to some extent there arethings that can be done to mitigate such damage. In
relation to conflict, military theorists, from Sun Tzu(1998) writing in China some 2,000 years ago, tovon Clausewitz (1997) writing in 19th century Europe, have consistently argued that accepting such
destruction as an inevitable consequence of war ispoor military, and political, thinking. Put simply, it
not only makes occupation more difficult (as a population that has seen its cultural property destroyed
will be a resentful population), but damage and destruction also provide a reason for the next conflict.
In a similar way, the failure of authorities to protect
cultural property from environmental damage anddestruction may lead also not only to loss of a community’s heritage but to public frustration and resentment.
Such loss of cultural property (the physical, tangible, evidence of the past - landscapes, sites, buildings, objects etc.) is not just relevant to those specialists who study the past. The loss is important toall of us for, as individuals and as a group, we study
the past, to understand the present, to create thefuture. The relationship between an individual’s orgroup’s past, present, and future is a complex andheavily intertwined one. It is also heavily intertwined with an individual’s or community’s cultural
heritage (the intangible remnants of the past as remembered in the present - stories, songs, customs,
costumes etc.). Cultural property also frequently
provides the focus and backdrop for the enactmentof cultural heritage - it becomes the stage on which
cultural heritage is performed. Without culturalproperty this complex relationship becomes increasingly difficult to sustain; when cultural property is lost, it is impossible to replace, and the loss
undermines our understanding of, and relationshipwith, cultural heritage.

− 109 −

Just as an individual without a memory is a dysfunctional individual so a group, community, or society without a memory - can become dysfunctional.
This is, of course, not to say that the memory encapsulated within cultural property/heritage is always a positive influence for good: the function, importance, interpretation, and uses of culturalproperty/heritage are frequently contested, andare not infrequently problematic. Nevertheless cultural property, and cultural heritage, can be key factors in political, social, and economic post-conflictand post-disaster stabilisation and reconciliation,with the potential to foster intercultural dialogue,
and frequently providing a stable base for economic
development through tourism. Its loss makes us individually and collectively, the poorer.
During the Second World War the protection ofcultural property was seen as part of the responsibility of the combatants and the Allies, and someelements of Axis forces, took this responsibility seriously (See e.g. Woolley 1947: Edsel 2009; Edsel2013). Fully supported by the Supreme Allied Commander Field Marshall Dwight Eisenhower, the‘Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives’ unit were ateam of cultural property experts fully integrated
into the Allied forces. These ‘Monuments Men’made enormous efforts to protect cultural property
in all theatres of the war. Unfortunately, little wasdone after the War to continue the work of these
conscript soldiers and by 2003 few military forces
retained anything other than a superficial expertise, or commitment to, the protection of culturalproperty as demonstrated depressingly by the almost utter failure, following the 2003 invasion, of
coalition forces to protect cultural property in Iraq.
The failure in Iraq is all the more surprising given the international community had come together
in 1996 to create an organisation, the International
Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS), to deal specifically with the protection of cultural property during armed conflict. The belief of those involved in
the Blue Shield is that at least some of the destruction of cultural property can be mitigated and avoid-

Tokyo Strategy Meetinged if the heritage community take appropriate action at the correct time. This cannot only mean
‘reactive’ action immediately before, or after, a conflict begins (or environmental disaster strikes). If
we are to have any viable chance to mitigate the impact of conflict or disaster on cultural property wehave to plan for the worst - long before either are
deemed imminent.
The Blue Shield
Article 16.1 of the 1954 Convention on the Protectionof Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict 1
identifies a Blue Shield as the emblem of the Convention and the emblem to be used to identify property protected under the Convention. The 1999 2nd
Protocol to the Convention established a 12 member Intergovernmental Committee to oversee its
implementation and Article 27.3 of the 2nd Protocol, picking up the Emblem identified in the 1954
Convention itself, identifies the ICBS as an advisory
body to the Intergovernmental Committee. The
Blue Shield was founded in 1996, in anticipation of
the 2nd Protocol, by the joint action of its four Founding Organisations: the International Council of Archives (ICA), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Council on
Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). As such, given the focus and remitof these organisations, it reflects the tangible, object-based approach enshrined within the Convention and the Blue Shield overtly focussed on cultural property and not cultural heritage. Since 1999
a number of national committees of the Blue Shield
have been created with various degrees of activity
and success. In 2008 these national committees
joined together to form the Association of National
Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS) and, giventhat the activities and actors were frequently identical to those involved in the protection of culturalproperty in conflict situations, the ANCBS broadened its focus to cover environmental disasters as
well. Some of the earliest activities of the Blue
Shield were actually linked to environmental disasters, for example following the collapse of the Cologne Archive building in 2009 (when the Blue
Shield helped organise hundreds of volunteers togo and help with the rescue and immediate conservation of archives) and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti
where the National Committees of the USA andFrance led on providing assistance 2.
As noted above, the protection of cultural prop-

erty during armed conflict was brought back into
sharp focus during the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the
Coalition led by the USA and UK (see e.g. Bogdanos
2005; Stone & Farchakh Bajjaly 2008). The loss ofglobally important cultural property in Iraq was appalling. At the time neither the USA nor the UK had
ratified the 1954 Convention. Partly as the result ofextensive pressure from the newly (2006) created
USA National Committee of the Blue Shield, theUSA has since ratified the Convention in 2009, butneither of its Protocols. At the time of writing inJanuary 2016 the UK has still failed to ratify theConvention.
The Blue Shield is referred to frequently as the‘cultural equivalent’ of the Red Cross that “…works
worldwide to provide humanitarian help for people
affected by conflict and armed violence and to promote the laws that protect victims of war” 3 . Despitesome suggestions to the contrary (see e.g. Hamilakis 2003 & 2009), colleagues working with Blue
Shield completely, and without reservation, acknowledge and accept that the protection of cultural property must come a distant second to the Red
Cross’ remit to help people. However, once people
are safe and sheltered it is the Blue Shield’s contention that cultural property soon becomes a very important factor in preserving social cohesion andstability. It could be argued that the Red Cross looks
after the cultural heritage, as held within individuals, while the Blue Shield looks after cultural property.
There is some justification in the suggestion of asimilarity between the organisations: as the Red
Cross/Red Crescent, the Blue Shield is comprisedof international and national bodies (there are currently 17 national committees of the Blue Shield
and another nine under development). There are,however, three key differences: First, the Red
Cross has had some 150 years to establish a worldwide reputation; the Blue Shield has been in existence for less than 20 years and is virtually unknown
outside those involved in its community and somearmed forces. Second, the Red Cross has a multimillion pound budget; save for a time-limited, shortterm, subvention for an office from the municipalityof The Hague, the Blue Shield has no income at all
except for limited travel funding for the author provide by Newcastle University. Third, the Red Cross
has a paid staff of some 12,000 people in 80 countries; the Blue Shield has no paid staff. As it stands
the Blue Shield is therefore essentially a network ofwilling volunteers.
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(Session 4)

Despite these obvious disadvantages the Blue
Shield is slowly developing a capacity to act and isgradually carving out a niche for itself with respect
to cultural property protection (CPP) during armed
conflict and environmental disaster that compliments, but does not overlap, the work of others in
the field. As noted above, somewhat simplistically,
cultural property provides the stage for, and tangible evidence of, the wider cultural heritage; without
cultural property it becomes significantly more difficult to conserve cultural heritage. While undoubtedly the major causes globally of destruction of cultural property/heritage are urban expansion,increase in land under cultivation, the developmentof agricultural-related technologies, and environmental degradation and disaster, cultural property
is damaged and destroyed specifically during conflict for six reasons: [a] protection of cultural property is not regarded as important enough to include
in pre-conflict planning; [b] cultural property is regarded as legitimate ‘spoils of war’; [c] it becomes
collateral damage; [d] through lack of militaryawareness; [e] through looting; and [f] as the resultof specific targeting. While perhaps the Blue Shieldcan do little about the last of these at least, underthe 2nd Protocol, intentional damage and destruction is now a criminal act. However, the first five
could, and should, be mitigated through a closer
relationship and understanding between culturalproperty/heritage professionals and those groups
most involved in conflict (politicians, the militaryand other emergency agencies, organisations, andNGOs) and through a better understanding bycommunities of the multifaceted value of the cultural property all around them.
The Blue Shield has been reactive, but increasingly proactive, in trying to address these reasons
through a variety of activities.
Policy development
Over the last few years, in conjunction with colleagues in the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), theUSA Department of Defence (DoD), and NATO, efforts have been made to develop what has become
known as the ‘4 Tier Approach’ that provides a policy outline and practical framework for the inclusionof CPP into military doctrine and long-term planning. Tier 1 requires the integration of CPP training
within basic training for all military personnel at an
appropriate level and can be introduced for junior
ranks, for example, through posters, packs of playing cards, and short films. Tier 2 is introduced as− 111 −The looting of archaeological sites across Iraq following the 2003
invasion was facilitated by the coalition failing to understand theimportance of cultural property protection. Here a young looter
points to where he found artefacts he was trying to sell.
Credit: Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly

soon as deployment becomes a possibility and themilitary needs an understanding of the specific cultural property they will encounter; this is the timeto provide or review detailed information about cultural property to be protected in a particular theatreof operations. A number of countries have developed specific materials for this Tier including thepacks of country focused playing cards producedby the US, Dutch, and Norwegian armed forces, thelatter with the support of the Norwegian Blue
Shield. Tier 3 is activity during conflict and Tier 4
post-conflict activity during what the military refers
to as ‘stabilization’. The reproduction of the article
dealing with the 4 Tier approach, first published in
an archaeology journal (Stone 2013), in the British
Army Review led to further discussions with the
British Army and an agreed process towards thedevelopment of a CPP doctrine for the Army.
Liaison with militar y and other emergency organisations
A number of national committees have close relations with their own military. For example, the US
Blue Shield (USBS) sits on the Combatant Command Cultural Heritage Action Group (http://
cchag.org/index.php/about/), the Austrian Blue
Shield has close links with the Austrian Defence
Academy, and the UK Blue Shield is in negotiations
over the proposed integration of aspects of CPP into
existing officer training and also the development ofproposed specialised training, to be delivered
through the UK Defence Academy, in cultural property protection (CPP).

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Lists of cultural property
Since 2008, mainly through the work of the USBS
and cultural heritage colleagues in the UK, the Blue
Shield has helped to provide lists of cultural property to be protected if at all possible during armed
conflict, for Libya, Mali, and Syria. These lists havebeen deposited with the DoD in the USA and the
MoD in the UK. The lists have also been passed on
to NATO via a number of different routes. The intention is that the information will be added to theso-called ‘No-strike’ lists, produced by the military.
These No-strike lists are comprised of, for example,
lists of hospitals, religious buildings, and educational establishments to be avoided unless ‘military necessity’ dictates (usually only when the places are
employed by the enemy for military purposes). All
three military organisations above have asserted
that these lists of cultural places have been added totheir no-strike lists.
The co-operation between cultural property experts and the military over the formulation of the
No-strike list for Libya was perceived as a great success by NATO. In particular, the protection of the
Roman Fort at Ras Almargeb, where forces loyal to
the Gadhafi regime, presumably hoping that NATOwould take damage to cultural property into consideration, had parked six vehicles next to the Roman
fort, was seen as a significant success. The site wason the list of cultural sites submitted to NATO andappears to have been added to the No-strike list. As
a result, NATO forces were able to plan the precise
destruction of the military targets with very minimal shrapnel damage the fort. This led NATO tocommission an internal Report on ‘Cultural Property Protection in the Operations Planning Process’that was published in December 2012 (NATO2012). The Report recommended that NATOshould “…create a CPP policy featuring the commitment of the Alliance to protect cultural property…” Discussions over the development of this policy are still underway.
During/Post conflict assessment missions
The Blue Shield has also been able to react more
quickly than other organisations to deploy small
teams of volunteers to conflict areas in order to assess, as early as possible, levels of damage and theneeds of local heritage colleagues. To-date, missions have been to Egypt (20114), Libya (twice in20115), and Mali (2014) undertaken by those withboth heritage and military training. In Mali, for ex-

ample, the mission aims were to [a] document thecurrent situation of heritage sites; [b] assess theimpact of post-conflict problems such as illegal digging and illicit traffic; [c] provide international solidarity with and support for those in Mali who protected their heritage under extremely difficult
conditions; and [d] encourage the Malian Armed
Forces to further efforts to protect cultural property. As part of the mission the team gave short presentations on cultural property protection for morethan 30 officers from different security services in
Timbuktu6. Such work is crucial to give much needed international support to often beleaguered local
colleagues.
Training programmes
At present most NATO countries include some level of training with respect to CPP on their hometraining areas and some have extended this withpre-deployment scenario training – for example
what a patrol should do if they are faced with a mob
looting a museum (see e.g. Brown 2010; Rush2011). In the USA the CPP awareness training carried out by archaeologist Laurie Rush at Fort Drumhas won numerous awards and Rush has been a major contributor to the cultural property training resources produced by the DoD7. The USBS carries
out a range of seminars and military cultural property emergency response training8. More widely, incollaboration with UNESCO, the Blue Shield carried out training for the Lebanese Armed Forces in
May 2013 and as a result of this event, Blue Shield
was invited by UNESCO’s Standard Section to help
develop a draft curriculum for a standardised
course regarding CPP. The intention is that this basic course could be used anywhere in the world fora variety of audiences with minimal modification.
Further work is currently underway on this initiative to produce a three day course for middle ranking officers with responsibility for CPP.
The Blue Shield has also carried out numerous
other training programmes - for example in Cambodia and Mali and for African colleagues in Austria.
In cooperation with UNESCO’s Regional Office inBeirut, Blue Shield volunteers recently helped totrain officers of the United Nations Interim force in
Lebanon.
Publications/Raising profile
A number of Blue Shield activists regularly publish
academic articles and books and general media
pieces to raise the awareness of CPP. Blue Shield− 112 −

(Session 4)

also works with other organisations to produce publications – most recently with the NATO accredited‘CIMIC Centre of Excellence’ to produce Cultural
Property Protection Makes Sense (http://www.
cimic-coe.org/products/conceptual-design/downloads/ccoe-publications/makes-sense-series/).
The future…
Much has been done, but far more needs doing. A
campaign to raise awareness of the importance of
CPP amongst politicians, nationally and internationally, must begin and those countries that have notyet ratified the Convention must be encouraged to
do so. The process of developing awarenessamongst the military needs to be continued, as
does the creation of a CPP doctrine and development of fully integrated training programmes, leading to identifiable officers with a CPP function andremit within all armed forces. NATO needs to implement an organisational-wide CPP doctrine asrecommended in its own 2012 internal report. Morefocus and attention needs to be put on combatting,and exposing the part played by the art world in,
the trade in illicit antiquities. The desire of wealthycollectors across the world to own original antiquities is not only the greatest stimulus for looting during conflict but has also opened an additional, significant, source of income for the purchase of
weapons and ammunition to prolong various conflicts. Better contact needs to be made with the International Criminal Court to raise the profile ofcrimes against culture; those perpetrating suchcrimes must know that, while they may get awaywith them during conflict, they will be brought totask after the conflict. All of this, and more, needs
urgent attention. Perhaps the most pressing need,however, is to identify the funding to enable theabove and more to be done before we are faced withanother catastrophic loss of the world’s culturalproperty.

1	See http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_
DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html (accessed 1 June2015)
2 See http://uscbs.org/news/?s=haiti (accessed 7 June 2014)
3 See http://www.icrc.org/eng/who-we-are/index.jsp (Accessed
1 June 2015)
4 See http://www.blueshield.at/egypt_2011/mission_report_
egypt_02_2011.pdf (accessed 7 June 2014)
5 See http://www.blueshield.at/libya_2011/09-2011/mission_
report_libya_09-2011.pdf and http://www.blueshield.at/libya_2011/11-2011/mission_report_libya_11-2011.pdf (accessed
7 June 2014)
6 See http://www.ancbs.org/cms/images/mission_report_mali_1.
pdf (accessed 7 June 2014)
7 See http://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/cptraining.html(accessed 4 June 2014)
8 See http://www.uscbs.org/events.htm (accessed 4 June 2014)

REFERENCES:
Bogdanos, M, (with Patrick, W) 2005 Thieves of Baghdad, NewYork and London, Bloomsbury
Edsel, R M, 2009 Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves
and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, London, Preface Publishing
Edsel, R M, 2013 Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's
Treasures from the Nazis, W. W. Norton & Company
Hamilakis, Y, 2003. Iraq, stewardship and ‘the record’: an ethicalcrisis for archaeology.
Public Archaeology 3: 104–11.
Hamilakis, Y, 2009 ‘The “War on Terror” and the Military–Archaeology Complex: Iraq, Ethics, and Neo-Colonialism’, Archaeologies
5 (1), 39–65
NATO, 2012 Cultural Property Protection in the Operations Planning Process, Unclassified Report by NATO's Joint Analysis andLessons Learned Centre, Lisbon, Portugal
Stone, P G, and Farchakh Bajjaly, J, (eds) 2008 The Destruction ofCultural Heritage in Iraq, Woodbridge, Boydell
Stone P G, 2013 ‘A four-tier approach to the protection of culturalproperty in the event of armed conflict’, Antiquity, 87(335), 166-177
Stone P G, 2013/14 ‘A 4 Tier Approach in the Protection of Cultural Property’, British Army Review, 159, 40-51
Sun Tzu, 1998 edn, The Art of War, translated by T Cleary, Boston
and London, Shambhala
von Clausewitz, C, 1997 On War, Wordsworth Editions, Ware (firstpublished in 1832 as Vom Kreige)
Woolley, L, 1947 A Record of the Work Done by the Military Authorities for The Protection of the Treasures of Art and History in
War Areas, London, HMSO

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Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Roundtable Discussion[Facilitators]
Aparna Tandon, Akatsuki Takahashi

Naoko Kobayashi (National Diet Librar y, Japan):My name is Naoko Kobayashi. I am from National
Diet library. As has been introduced, I am a directorof IFLA PAC, Regional Centre for Asia. When I say
PAC, the IFLA is holding this strategic program andwe are now working on the preservation and theconservation of the library materials. Under theleadership of the PAC Focal Point within headquarters of IFLA, we have 13 regional centers, and the
National Diet Library is serving as PAC Regional
Centre for Asia. IFLA, the International Federationof Library Associations and Institutions, has been
the member of Blue Shield, and the directors of
PAC Focal Point have been involved with the Blue
Shield International Committee.
Now, IFLA has set the preservation and disasterrisk reduction of cultural heritage as one of its key
initiatives after Haiti earthquake in 2010, when
IFLA was not able to provide enough informationon the library’s cultural heritage in response to
UNESCO’s enquiry. Libraries and cultural institutions acquire books, magazines and various othermaterials. While there are many common publications in libraries, there are also old archival documents and local collections, which are unique toeach library. We call such collections “the documentary heritage” and “cultural heritages in the library,” as they are irreplaceable and important toboth, the library and the community.
At the time of disaster, libraries would have toplay a role, for example, to provide necessary information, practical information to the residents, andprovide books for their spiritual comfort. If the library materials held at a disaster-affected libraryare damaged, other libraries can support its service
by sending books. Materials of this kind are replaceable.
On the other hand, it is part of the libraries’ role
to identify and protect their irreplaceable cultural
heritage collections from disasters. In this respect,disaster preparedness is an issue that libraries havein common with museums and archives.
Among the cultural heritage in libraries, there

are modern printed materials as well as the documents that are considered historically valuable. Local materials like the community’s commemorative
issues or picture albums are usually bound in simple ways, and do not look like precious treasures intimes of peace. But for example, when a tsunami
hits the area and destroys its original landscape,such materials are the only clues to recall what it
looked like before the disaster. Local collections
also tell stories of past disasters which happened in
the area. One librarian in the Great East Japan
Earthquake-affected area said; “even if a town is rebuilt and a new library is constructed, we cannot
call it a ‘real rehabilitation’ without the local collection which shows us the history of our town.”
IFLA started the Risk Register project and has
been making efforts to build the database, whichcollects information on libraries’ cultural heritagethat is at risk, and to set up a website for librarians,
which will give information on disaster preparedness and response. In the database, comprehensive
information of each cultural heritage will be gathered. This includes not only the location of the heritage collection, but also the potential risks for cultural heritage and the library’s capacity for disaster
response, for example, the number of properly
trained staff. So, this includes the information thatshows the overall potential of the library.
IFLA aims to, in case of emergency, provide
these data to key partners in the disaster responsesuch as UNESCO and the Blue Shield and cooperate with them to support the libraries’ recovery.
This is still in the process of development, so I’m
not able to communicate to you what it actually
looks like. But this is the report of the IFLA activities in recent months. Thank you.
Yohsei Kohdzuma (Nara National ResearchInstitute for Cultural Properties, Japan):In 2011, there was a great earthquake in East Japanand I am in charge of recovering the water damaged paper objects, including old documents andletters of cultural value. East Japan Earthquake wasa very big earthquake and, as a result, there was a− 114 −

(Session 4)

tsunami that came afterwards.
Because of the tsunami many cultural properties
were damaged. What we were concerned the mostabout were the organic-based properties, such as
papers that are made of wood. Once they are damaged by water, they rot very fast, so early rescue
was very much needed. But unfortunately, it was
not easy for us to make the necessary preparations
for the rescue of paper-based properties. I think
there were three points.
First, because it was decaying at fast speed, we
needed to stop the rotting and molding, or at least
temporally halt the process. To achieve this, we had
to use the refrigerated storage, just as we do in our
everyday lives to slow down the spoiling of perishable goods. However, freezers, in 99% of the cases
were meant to be for food. So, companies were notwilling to cooperate with us, but in Nara prefecture,
we found the Nara Refrigerating Company, Ltd.,
which kindly offered their help. In addition, there isa logistics system in place between the cold storage
warehouses. So we were able to also get the transportation between the damaged area and the freezer, and also we were able to get the freezer. So that
was a very good point in the start of rescue activities for the properties.
Second, in the case of big earthquake, and thetsunami, there are many cultural properties that aredamaged. We needed to ensure the safety of thehuge number of paper materials as soon as possible. By that I mean that we needed to make them
dry as soon as possible. So, we considered somelarge drying facilities that also would not causemuch damage to the properties, and a vacuum
freeze-dryer could serve to this task. At Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties,
one of the works is to store and conserve the archaeological objects and there we do have vacuumfreeze dryers for big items, so we were able to use
them. Also, in prefectures and municipalities, 19 of
the municipal archaeological centers have vacuumfreeze-drying facilities. Altogether, we were able toutilize 54 vacuum-freeze-drying facilities, whichwere meant for treating the archaeological subjects.
However, because of the earthquake, we were able
to procure them for our use. Some of the facilities
were extending or offering help. Thanks to the cooperation of those facilities we were able to establish a system of emergency response using thevacuum-freeze-drying equipment that is normallyused for the purposes of conservation and restoration of varied cultural properties.
− 115 −The third point was, that once those culturalproperties were stabilized, we had to clean thembecause they were soiled. In Nara Prefecture, there
is a non-profit organization (NPO) called Association for the Study of Book History and Conservation. Its an amateur organization but there are some
excellent specialists among them. So we asked thisgroup of people of varied levels of technical skills to
help us with the cleaning of the damaged materials.
Of course, it was volunteer work, but we were able
to conduct the cleaning with the help of this groupof people, who possess specific knowledge andtechniques.
Finally, we were able to combine these threepoints of refrigerated storing, using of the vacuum
freeze-drying equipment and securing the cooperation with the NPO for cleaning. Within 3 years wewere able to process vast amount of water-damaged
cultural property. We now have this network. The
East Japan Earthquake rescue activities are still ongoing, but we expect many more earthquakes anddisasters to happen in Japan. There are and continue to be many papers that are damaged by flood
every year. Because we have this sort of continuing
threat, securing the rescuing system in place isquite important and that has to be done under thenormal circumstances. We need to maintain thisnetwork, even if there is no damage occurring. Thisis our challenge, to maintain this well-establishednetwork in future.
Yuji Kurihara (NICH):
We established the Cultural Heritage Disaster Risk
Mitigation Network on July, 2014. The trigger forthis is what has been discussed in this conference,
the Cultural Heritage Rescue Program activities.
I would like to briefly explain what is the Cultural
Heritage Rescue Program. To put it simply, it serves
for the rescue of cultural properties in affected areas, by bringing them to safe areas, temporarily storing there, and providing immediate treatments.
Then, of course, a full-scale conservation has to bedone but that might last from 10 to 30 years, - amuch longer stage. Anyway, the Cultural Heritage
Rescue Program is limited to the temporary initial
response. But as Mr. Kozuma said, in Fukushima,
this rescue program lasts for about 2 years, but as
far as Fukushima is concerned, it was very difficult
to get in the area near the nuclear power plant, so
the rescue works still continue.
There is no time to go into details, but in few
words, the Cultural Heritage Rescue Program isTokyo Strategy Meeting

functioning under the guidance of the Agency for
Cultural Affairs. We are part of the network that
also unites the National Museum of Art, the National Museum of Nature and Science, National Diet
Library, National Archives of Japan, Japanese Association of Museums, Japanese Council of Art Museums, where both public and private sectors cooperate. Our task in this network is to go to the field andrescue cultural properties. Basically, this task cannot be easily done by the private sector, because
first, the Agency for Cultural Affairs contacts theprefecture governments, then the prefecture governments make a request, and only after this theactivities are conducted. Otherwise it is impossible
to distinguish us from looters. Thus, we have to wait
for the request for rescue from the local government, before we take an action.
Since these are all emergency activities, our organization does not have a regular budget, so werely on donations and conduct fundraising to collectthe financial resources for these activities. Our nextchallenge is to keep some money reserve for emergency purposes, because, as you know, donations
cannot be collected soon enough.
There are some challenges of rescue works that
I would like to mention. One of them you can callbureaucracy, or compartmentalization of the government. Normally, administration for the culturalproperties protection are under the jurisdiction of
the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Museums as facilities come under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of
Education, but the responsibility over their contents are divided between the Agency of Cultural
Affairs – for the arts and history museums, and theMinistry of Education – for the nature and science
museums. Libraries are under the jurisdiction of
the Ministry of Education and archives are responsibility of the National Archive agency of the Cabinet of Ministers. So, when we try to work together,
we have difficulties because of this complex structure.
There is another issue; an issue of terminology.
We have a cultural properties protection act in Japan, where the definition of cultural properties, iscentered on the objects of traditional arts and crafts.
Contemporary arts, objects of natural history,
books and ancient documents can get excluded. So,in our organization, we always say cultural properties and other materials. This phrase has been added so that we are not only protecting cultural properties, but some other things too with accordance
to the cultural properties protection act. In fact,

when we go to the field in the affected areas, we do
not waste time trying to distinguish what are cultural properties and what are not cultural properties, but try to provide the rescue to the broad arrayof objects.
The Blue Shield organization acts for this purposes on the International arena. There are also
such international organizations as ICOM, IFLA,
ICA, ICOMOS and CCAAA, and if we arrange agood coordination with them through the related
Japanese agencies, I think we can do a better job in
cultural heritage rescue.
In the past, taking a lesson from the UK, we tried
to establish the so-called MLA cooperation (Museums, Libraries and Archives), but because of thegovernmental bureaucracy such cooperation was
hard to achieve. When the national organizations,
try to collaborate with each other, it’s not as simple,
so what we do in Japan, is that we use the externalpressure. We use the pressures of the international
community, for instance, under the name of theBlue Shield there might be a step forward for the
MLA cooperation. For now, this is just my personalidea, but since there is still no national committee of
the Blue Shield in Asia, maybe we should establish
national committee of Blue Shield in Japan. I have ahope that it would trigger the progress of MLA cooperation.
Towards this goal, we established the headquarters of the National Task Force for the Japan Cultural Heritage Disaster Risk Mitigation Network in
the National Institute for Cultural Heritage. For
now it is just a small internal organization, but ourgoal is to create the all-Japan national organization.
Another goal is to proceed with the research andsurveys because no one knows what kind of calamity will happen so we are trying to gather as muchinformation as possible. Lastly, we would like to develop human resources for these tasks. Unfortunately, at the National Institutes of Cultural Heritage, we don’t have disaster experts so want tonurture such people.
In order to organize a national network, we gathered people from the organizations that cooperated
in the abovementioned rescue operations, such as
libraries, archieves and museums, and established
the Cultural Heritage Disaster Prevention. In fact,
just 2 days ago, we held an opening meeting. Also,in this kind of a meetings, sometimes people hesitate to speak their minds, so we invited some eminent people for the special private sessions where
they could say whatever they wanted to say. We also
− 116 −

(Session 4)

had those meetings 2 days ago and we got scoldedin a way by the experts.
In addition, there are more than 20 archival networks in various parts of Japan. They are mostly
private NPOs that have their administrative stationsat universities, and they conduct their activities toprotect cultural properties on a half-volunteering
basis. Their national assembly took place in Kobe
last month. There are two kinds of archival networks, the ones that do preventive activities andalso the other group that has been created aftersome disasters took place. As a rule, such networks
do not appear in big metropolises. If we could havesuch networks in all prefectures then, our cultural
heritage disaster prevention network could cooperate with them and engage in more activities. We
would like to cooperate with various stakeholders,
national, public and private, in order to develop thisnetwork for the effective disaster prevention in the
future. That is all I had to say. Thank you.
Fredrik Rosen (Danish Institute for International Studies):
I’ve been asked to speak a little bit about the capacity of international military organizations and how
we could achieve the more efficient partnerships at
this level of international cooperation for DRR.
The capacity in which I am invited today to speak
here is a Director of NATO Science for Peace andSecurity project. The aim of this project, conductedin cooperation with various counterparts in NATOheadquarters, is to develop suggestions for how
NATO policies and doctrines on cultural property
protection can be advanced as well as to assist theNATO’s activities related to this topic.
This project, which was called the best practicefor cultural property protection in NATO-led missions, is supported by all 28 member states, something which reflects the fact that military’s concern
for cultural property after all is growing.
Now, the NATO CPP capacity is not somethingthat happens overnight. Since last August, together
with my partners from the US military, the UK Department of Defense, and Sarajevo Operations
Training Centre, we have spend most of our timetalking to stakeholders in NATO and trying to explain what cultural property protection is all about,and how and where the ‘54 Convention applies to it.
Not least, we have to explain how the CPP could
benefit NATO operational goals and discuss withthem where and how CPP could sit within established NATO branches.
− 117 −

Moreover, I find the same level of confusion in
the UN peacekeeping systems, as well as on themember state level. The last couple of years, I’ve
been also involved in systematic examination of theDanish implementation of the ‘54 regime. We ratified the Convention in 2003 and 10 years after we
could not see any signs of implementation. The
Ministry of Defense pointed at the Ministry of Culture because they were the custodians. The Ministry of Culture said it was about humanitarian law
and that responsibility thus fell on the DoD and theMinistry of Justice. And the Ministry of Justice said
that it was the Ministry of Culture that was responsible. Hence, cultureal property protection always
falls between the chairs.
The result is the lack of CPP capability in the international coordinating bodies for military affairs,
and I’m talking here about the military branches of
the UN, the African Union, the European Union,
and, of course, NATO. Nor do we see any effective
actions on a state-level. That said, despite of the apathy of the UN and NATO, we can see that the interest for the cultural heritage protection is growing
on the level of individual organizations or citizens
movements.
Regarding our discussion about the disaster risk
reduction, the problem is that DRR really needs astrong military partner, because the military usually is able to provide rapid response mechanism fordisasters. So what can we do in view of this confusion and lacking awareness of CPP? Based on myexperiences with the NATO and the UN, I have thefollowing recommendations. First of all, don’t overestimate the ‘54 regime. While the Convention does
appeal to states to build or plan a military capacity
to handle CPP, it’s the member states that decide
when the criteria are met. So, you don’t actually
have to build capacity in order to fulfill international
obligations and thus you may fulfill your international obligations without becoming an effective
partner for DRR.
Also, note that the ‘54 regime only applies to situations legally defined as international armed conflict. It is not an option to expand the scope of application to disasters. So, the challenge is to obtainthe military CPP capacity for DRR without changing the international law framework. What is needed for this is to find a state that would to champion
cultural heritage protection as a DRR-related issue.
If it happens, we will be able to tackle cultural heritage protection within the disaster prevention activities. Another important task is to establish the ca-Tokyo Strategy Meeting

pacity in the relevant coordinating bodies formilitary affairs in international organizations. Suchcapacity does not come by itself.
If you look at the UN peacekeeping setup, they
have the will and they see that there is relevance,and I know that because I am communicating withthem on a regular basis, and we try to figure out
what to do. But they have no funds and they have no
manpower. Don’t forget that UN peacekeeping only
recently set up an organization for environment
protection, but since the cholera breakout in Haiti,
no personnel had been appointed there
So, how do we solve this issue? I think that one
solution could be to find a state that is willing to second two professionals to the relevant branches ofthe four main international coordinating bodies formilitary affairs. They do not necessarily have to be
CPP specialists. The most important thing is thatthey know how the organizations work and how themember states can work, and that they can communicate with military staff on senior levels. So, I’m
not sure that the Blue Shield or UNESCO, for instance, would be the right organizations to take up
these functions. It more depends on whether theright personnel can be found within those organizations, because the personnel can influence the organizations’ orientations and goals.
Also, the reason for using secondments, to jumpstart CPP capacities, is that the secondments are
more directly related to the operational, rather thanpolitical level, which is slow and always extremely
difficult to handle. So, if the goal is to find a statethat is willing to sponsor 8 secondments for 3-year
periods and send them out to NATO, EU, AU, andthe UN, we could start calculating the costs. To give
you an estimate, and I’m sure that some people
here in the room are more competent to provide thenumbers, I think it would cost about $200,000 per
year per person to make such an arrangement. Twopeople and four organization would make US$2.4
million for 3 years, and then you need to add operational costs on top of it on travels, meetings, etcetera, and funds for pilot projects. So, let’s say that weare talking about US$10 million for a 3-year period.
This is a tremendous amount of money.
So, my suggestion would be that we make aroadmap, that aims at finding a state that is willingto actually champion and finance the jumpstart of
CPP capacities across the UN, EU, AU, and NATO.
You’ll need a clear concept papers and provisionalterms of references for the secondments, and abudget, of course. That is just a matter of goingfrom one state to another, to see if there would be
any willingness to pursue such goal. You could also
look at 4 states to share the cost, and why not startwith Japan? I think that would make a lot of sense.
Thank you very much.
Aparna Tandon:
Now it is time for some discussion. For the discussion to begin, we would like to first invite our keynote speakers to kindly come up to the desk andtake their seats. We are going to change how we
open this discussion a little bit. As the speakers
come up, I am going to explain. We are going to ask
one common question to all the speakers of this session, including the discussants, starting with the
keynote speakers and then moving to the discussants who have concrete suggestions. The questionis based on the presentations that you gave today.
We would like you to give us one or two recommendations for improving preparedness, response, andrecovery related to disaster risk management of
cultural heritage, looking at both armed conflicts
and natural disasters.
Scott Branting:
I can refer to two different areas in terms of thepresentation I gave. One is in terms of the need for
coordination. This issue was addressed in all thedifferent talks, I think, it is important to find a way
to coordinate, be that within our own organizations,with other organizations, with the military, with foreign bodies, or with the local communities and partners. Obviously, technology can help with some ofthese, but as Corine Wegener said, besides having
meetings or other things like that long-term coordination is necessary.
Xavier Romão:Well, just after reading the session brief that was
distributed to you all this morning, I think the firstpoint is actually one of the essential points, basicallyto establish inventories of information of data on
cultural heritage. I would just add to that first pointthat if a specific cultural heritage asset sustained
any losses and damages in the recent past due tohazardous events, that information should also beshared. As I showed in my presentation, this information can be very important for the future.
Corine Wegener:
In terms of my presentation, I think that one of thereally important aspects is to create these networks− 118 −

(Session 4)

and maintain them. That is a critical thing. Just having meetings does not help if you do not keep the
network alive before a disaster. It goes back to what
we were saying yesterday about how you have tocome to the level of what people care about and it iskind of hard to convince a museum director orsome other cultural heritage institution why theyshould pay attention to this, when they are worried
about so many other things. But we need to bringthem together and explain to them the benefits ofdisaster risk reduction. There is a popular book out
right now called ʻThe Resilience Dividendʼ, according to which we need proper planning of a resilience dividend, a minimum of actual money.
The second thing I want to say at the risk of intervening on what Peter might say is that I thinkpeople often have to be reminded that the 1954
Hague Convention is not just about what the military does. If you are an adherent to the Hague Convention, you are required to plan the protection ofyour cultural heritage in times of peace, for cases ofconflict. I think oftentimes, we, as cultural heritage
professionals, forget that the first part of the Hague
Convention is the responsibility of making plans forour own heritage.
Peter Stone:
I hate to sound like my a former English Prime Minister, but I think the basic thing is, education, education, education, education, and education. Our education is related to our responsibility in the 1954
Convention, as Corine Wegener says. It is also
about the opportunities that the Convention gives
to the education of the military and other emergency armed forces and it is not an obstacle, it really is
an opportunity for them. It is education at a school
and a community level, and it is education for thegeneral public, and I think all this education activity
needs to happen as quickly as possible.
Naoko Kobayashi:
At libraries, as I said in my speech, identifying important things is a priority. Not only librarians, butalso community members have to know what is important beforehand. What is most important is thatwhen libraries are damaged, the entire community
may lose its functions. If the media knows that thecommunity has important cultural heritage, thenthe media could promote it and let people in otherregions know. Other libraries, such as prefecture
libraries or national libraries, may collaborate by tosharing information in times of peace. I am afraid− 119 −

that was not the case before the earthquake that we
had 4 years ago in Japan. So, sharing information on
important heritage before disasters seems important to me.
Yohsei Kohdzuma:
I also think education is necessary, and, as you
said,that a network is extremely important. When
we talk about cultural heritage rescue and risk management, I think protection through prevention has
to be in the first place. When cultural properties encounter inevitable damage, , we have to rescue
them and make recovery efforts for them. These
are the three phases,, but instead of treating them
independently, we need to treat them together in an
integrated process. Creating a network and maintaining it, is quite important, but building and maintaining a network requires resources. How can we
secure such resources? I think that efficient network maintenance i is a challenge that we are facing
today.
Yuji Kurihara:
In Japan , similar initiatives for cultural properties
started right after the Great Hanshin Earthquake.
Rescue activities were carried out, and even though
there was a movement to permanently keep the networks that were organized in that occasion, after 10
years, the network disappeared. This time, after theGreat East Japan Earthquake, we had to create itfrom scratch. So, instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again, our biggest task once wehave anetwork, is to keep it permanently active. So
thatʼs the lessons we have learned.
Regarding the cooperation with the armed forces of Japan, I am now talking about the self-defense
forces, as our Constitution does not allow us to havean army itself. Before we had this conference, wewent to see the Ministry of Defense, because thedefense forces are the first actors to go into disaster
affected areas before anyone else. I went in order to
ask their views on cultural properties, knowing thatsaving peopleʼs lives is the priority. They said thatthey understood, but that I had to approach themthrough the proper channel, such as the Agency for
Cultural Affairs, rather than a national museum. I
then replied that they rarely had an opportunity totalk to the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Then, theMinistry of Defense said in the Central Disaster
Prevention Council he had not heard anything
about the topic at the council meetings. The Agency
for Cultural Affairs is just a part of the Ministry ofTokyo Strategy Meeting

Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), so it does not have its own representation. Because the MEXT is in charge of the education facilities -which includes schools-, it prioritizes
schools and their safety, disregarding the cultural
sector, which is the challenge facing us. We need toconvince MEXT and the entire government of theimportance the cultural heritage risk management,
raising awareness of the issues by referring to examples of other countries. Thank you.
Fredrik Rosen:
The approach of institutionalizing cultural property protection in times of disaster can be multiplied by unifying the NGOs and all the entities we
see all over the world who are doing a great job
showing the importance of this field.
To have units and capacity at the level where themain resources and main funding of the international community can be pooled and allocated – I
think that will actually be something that is of great
importance to this field. Another very beneficial
thing that I see could be is to have a much better
coordination, as we have kept recalling since yesterday. There is a tendency that actors in this field
try to be diplomats, grass root projects activators,
and fundraisers, everything at once, and I think thatis is important to improve coordination, perhaps
limiting goals and ambitions, focusing on certain
aspects, and thinking very strategically in 5-year periods, for example.. Thank you very much.
Akatsuki Takahashi:
There is a cultural or linguistic issue. The Blue
Shield may not be well-known compared to the Red
Cross and the Red Crescent movement, and in Japan, we use terms “cultural rescue” and “doctor operations”. And I thought these were very goodterms that the ordinary people could easily get familiar with. I felt that what is important is that, regardless of the terminology, the essential functionof the Blue Shield, which is networking among cultural institutions and facilities, is carried out in a
way that is easy to understand. I think there is now
a momentum on this in Japan.
I recall there was a case study presented by a
Swedish expert, explaining that the National Heritage Board is a member of the National Disaster Prevention Committee. When I asked if they did any
particular lobbying, I was answered that they referred to the Hyogo Framework for Action document. So, I think we should wait for the adoption of

the outcome document of next weekʼs conference
and its possible impact, which may help our efforts
in integrating cultural heritage risk management in
the National Disaster Management Plan.
Aparna Tandon:
Thank you. Before opening the floor for discussion,
I want to sum up what our speakers have said.
Overwhelmingly, I think everybody has said more
networking, education, awareness raising, network
maintenance, funding, and ultimately also how tostreamline communication between various levelsof government and various ministries.
A final recommendation and very useful suggestion from Fredrik, is to not to waste time trying tounderstand what level of information we need to exchange. First we need a basic level of information.
Because the organizations are overstretched, there
is no capacity within sectors, and preparedness andresponse capacity is very limited , and this needs tobe emphasized.
So with these words, I would like to now open
the floor for questions.
Unidentified speaker:
I think it was important summing up the issues on
education, media and sharing heritage. But I think
one thing which we have seemed to miss is that weare in a digital age and there is crowd-sourcing,
there are social networks. I want to pick up on thefirst two presentations as to how crowd-sourcing
can help put information in Arches, the basic database. As for ICORP, which is about looking for heritage registrations, well, in fact, most of the documentation is a collection of photographs that everybody took with their iPhones.This is to say that wehave to have a new approach to documentation andthat means not to standardize but to harmonize.
Standardization is a top-down attitude which is as
Voltaire, I think, said, the greatest is the enemy ofgood. I think we should try to harmonize and understand that there is a way of moving from one
country to another and extend our knowledge baseto social and crowd-sourcing social network.
Aparna Tandon:
This is a question that I also wanted to ask the firsttwo speakers of today, about using other opensource and crowd-sourcing tools like Ushahidi andOpen Street Mapping, how do you think about incorporating that in your existing projects and database?
− 120 −

(Session 4)

Scott Branting:Open Street Maps and other things that are OGC
compliant can be brought into Arches. There a platform already there for bringing that in. Having it
linked to standards is critical for interoperability interms of different digital systems.
Getting to your questionon crowd-sourcing, I
have two different ways to answer that. We havebeen looking very hard at crowd-sourcing within
armed conflict situations and that would obviously
be radically different than what you have in a nonconflict situation.
What we are facing in Syria is that, if people use
their cell phones to take pictures, it could put themin danger. So, we need to find ways that people cando this in a safe manner for themselves and not having them do more than what they have to be doing.
Obviously, a life is more important than getting information on the cultural heritage.
The second aspect of that is that there are active
social media watchers in the Islamic state, and we
fully anticipate that we will get a lot of disinformation that is meant to overly weight certain propagandistic tendencies that they want to bring acrossin terms of the data. So we need to be scrutinous
and to a certain extent, we need to have this outsideof a conflict situation that is highly polarized,tojudge whether we confirm or deny the information.
We need to have a more intricate structureto prevent people from gettig venomous ideas that may
be forced in a dominant, monopolized way. Harmonization then what you would see in a non-conflictsituation,but we need to be even more careful interms of how to smooth that out within a conflictsituation.
Xavier Romão:Thank you for that very interesting question. That
question keeps coming up, and the answer is notreally easy. We have been thinking about that and,personally, I have mixed feeling about crowd-sourcing and other possible sources of information thatcan come up from social networks.
When I am asked this particular question, I have
two points . First, having too much information isalmost as useless as having no information at all.
The second point is that, if everyone comes up withinformation̶and I am not only saying about, butother types of information̶ how can we actuallycontrol the reliability of that information? If you
want to be able to use this information for serious
work like risk assessment, mitigation methods, and− 121 −

such, we have to provide reliable information. If
everyone in the world can actually contribute withinformation, then we would need to sort out what
actually matters from a ton of data and that is notreally productive, I think. So at the moment, we are
not thinking of including crowd-sourcing and social
networking as a source of information.
Timothy Curtis:
I have a question for Peter Stone and Corine Wegener about the Blue Shield. I may have misunderstood, but did I understand there is a movement tohave an international list associated with the 1954
Convention?.
It sounds like a good idea, but I would be very
worried about the mechanisms of inclusion because
the problem with lists, which are useful, is they not
only include, but they exclude. When we have international list such as the World Heritage List, they
have very specific criteria such as uniqueness andcomparison . I am concerned because such a list
would end up approving on an international level
and could really miss out on very important national heritage, which we would be seen as not as important as it gets caught up in the internationalization process. There is the model of the 1970
Convention, where Interpol has databases of disappearing art and so on, so that national level inventories can be fed into military structures without going to the international listing mechanism, which I
fear could also have quite negative consequences.
For instance, attracting deliberate destruction orwhat we see in the World Heritage, which is attracting tourists when a site is not ready to receive them.
Peter Stone:
I think I can put your mind at rest. There is no, certainly in my mind, no intention of creating an international list. There would be relevant state lists or
national lists that would relate and would be generated by the individual states and it would be on theircriteria.
Aparna Tandon:
Well, just for clarification, I am sure people alreadyknow that there is a list mechanism for enhanced
protection and let us not get into that quagmire ofwhat is effective and what not, although it is definitely one of the issues which we have to think
about.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Yasmeen Lari:I think for a person coming from Pakistan, where so
little is happening in terms of protection, it is justamazing to see this. Thank you very much for sharing all the good work that is going on.
Going onto the speakers, of course, a lot ofthings do resonate with us. Pakistan is a country
which is definitely targeted by extremists and weare losing a lot of heritage in this, although maybe it
is not highlighted as much as what is happening in
Syria and elsewhere, but the danger is lurking all
the time. That happened especially with some of themonuments that belong to the Buddhist period oreven the British period, only a couple of years ago.
So I think the whole thing about making inventories and knowing what is where is important, andthen also flagging what is happening, and that is
why I am really pleased to hear the first speakers
who talked about documentation and about danger
to heritage. I just would like to know how countries
like Pakistan we plug this into the whole system?
Because, for instance, we have just recently prepared a list in an electronic databank of something
like 1200 sites in Sindh alone, that are endangeredin many ways. It would be a good thing for us toknow how we could plug in. Also how can we, again,
talk about what is endangered and what has happened and how things have been blowing up, bringing it to the table, so to speak. So it is really enlightening for me to hear about what can be done withthe military. Right now, we have drones attacking
all kinds of areas and we have also our own military
going into the northern areas and bombing places
and militants. So there is a lot of conflict damage
that is being inflicted without us even knowing what
has happened. I bring it to the table just to be able
to say that it would be a good idea if Pakistan canplug into it in some way. Thank you very much.
Giovanni Boccardi:
I have two issues that I would like to raise. One isabout networking maintenance. I do not about you
but I receive hundreds of emails everyday by somany people and it is really hard to do anything on
your desk when you have to read and respond. To
maintain a network, there has to be an underlying
process, clear distribution of roles and tasks, an institutionalization so that I know that if something
happens, then I call this person and then he does
this, and so we have to design a process where everyone knows what their roles and responsibilities
are, supported by an agreement.

So, I want to come back to what Fredrik Rosen
was saying about getting together the peacekeeping institutions and trying to conceive a way ofworking with them. You have suggested that we
could start by seconding people to these organizations to begin operationalizing. But as for UNESCO,
my first idea was to convene a meeting, like Corine
Wegener was saying. Meetings are useful sometimes, and they put these people around the table,
as well as other institutions from our sector, and try
to design this scheme and then decide what needs
to be done by whom.
The same actually I would like to do for the humanitarian organizations because there are otherissues in addition to the military ones. For example,
in Syria and Iraq, in neighboring countries we have
now millions of refugees that come to some places,
completely disconnected from the cultural heritage.
This is also a human rights issue. So I wanted to ask
Fredrik Rosen, but also others, if you felt that an
initiative like this from UNESCO could be useful,
could be welcome?
Also, another issue I have with Scott Branting
and Xavier Romão is about inventorying. I think
this Arches has a huge potential and I understand it
can be customized. At the moment, as I understand,it has been designed for inventorying, in general,
but in the specific context of disaster risk reduction,
conflict, or risk reduction, it would be interesting, I
think to develop a specific version of Arches that
includes all the questions that we want to addresswhen an emergency arises, and then to pilot it insome countries that are either experiencing thesesituations or are likely to, for example, Libya, Yemen, could be in the next lines
Scott Branting:
Just very specifically on the last point, that is exactly what we are trying to do with Getty and colleagues in Lebanon for an inventory in Lebanon.
We chose it because at the moment it is safe andsecure. It is relatively small, it has therefore got a
relatively small number of sites, so a project can bedone relatively easily, quickly and cheaply. That isexactly what we are trying to do, to show “this is thelevel of detail that we need, if it is going to be successfully used in disaster situations at some point in
the future”. So we are trying to do that, definitely.
The other project we are doing in Lebanon at the
moment is with Syrian children who are there as
refugees, and there is a funding through UNICEF.
Weʼre working with a Lebanese NGO to try and− 122 −

(Session 4)teach about cultural heritage and CPP to those kids.
There is a target of dealing with, in the first instance, 8500 children, which is a very easy target,
given the number of Syrian families and children in
Lebanon at the moment. So those are two activities
that actually now got funding.
Fredrik Rosen:
I think the question of, how to get a process kickstarted in the UN headquarters, is very much amember state game in New York. So I think thatwhat needs to be done is simply to get one member
state on-board and ask this member state to invite
the relevant people from the relevant branches in
the UN, including X number of interested member
states. I mean, you send out an invitation either onan ambassador level or a deputy ambassador level,
decide what level you want to have this meeting on.
Do you want to have it with the Secretary General
there? That would be ambitious to start out with.
I did that last June. We had the people from
UNESCO who work in Mali. We flew them into New
York to have them around the table to share bestpractices, experiences, and also to just to take thetemperature in among the members showing up, as
well as our partners in the DPO. It is interesting,taking this topic forward in the context of UN
peacekeeping. Apart from one person, everybody
agrees that this was a no-brainer, but the question
was funds and right now there is a quite comprehensive review of UNʼs peacekeeping role and it
might not be the best time, even if cultural property
is very much under pressure this moment. There isa lot of media attention. There is a lot of discussion
about it. So in that way, there is a kind of political− 123 −

interest around the world.
These reviews of UN peacekeeping is such abuzz. There is so much going on and it might beworth to wait after that has calmed down a little bit
and then try to introduce the topic. But I think it isvery easy to make these meetings and I think there
is great interest and we could easily compile a large
number of member states, as well as relevant people from DPO.
Aparna Tandon:
I think we would like to bring this discussion to aclose, but the suggestions that Giovanni Boccardi
made about internal coordination within the cultural sector and with agencies outside is somethingthat we will consider at the end of the day today and
we invite others who had questions, but didnʼt havethe opportunity to discuss them to join us, while weengage together to make the recommendations.
There is also an important point which we did
not discuss enough. We did discuss the 1954 Hague
Convention but there is a gap. We do not have a
DRM-specific convention, an international convention, or we do not have DRM-specific domestic legislation that can enhance capacities. There shouldbe also some punitive measures associated withthis kind of legislation. So we can discuss all thatand more at the end of the day and with that I would
like to thank all the speakers and thank you for giving us a very interesting session.
Akatsuki Takahashi:
Aparna Tandon and myself are very pleased andthank all the participants for their active contribution and the lively discussion. Thank you.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Session 5
Preparedness for Response, Recover y andReconstruction (Part II)–Methodologies of Assessing Post Disaster Needs
for Recover y and Future Preparedness−[Facilitators] Timothy Curtis, Akiko Umezu

Contents
Presentation(5-1)
Integration of Cultural Heritage into Post-Disaster Needs Assessment(PDNA)

Giovanni Boccardi

Presentation（5-2）
PDNA Needs in the Pacific region

Paula Holland

Presentation(5-3）
Integration of Disaster Risk Analysis into Heritage Research
Methodologies

Mikio Koshihara

Presentation（5-4）
Building and Strengthening Partnerships: With Whom and How

Shen-Wen Chien

Roundtable Discussion

M.R.Rujaya Abhakorn,
Robyn Riddett,Ai Sekizawa

(Session 5)

Presentation (5-1)
Integration of Cultural Heritage into Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA)
Giovanni Boccardi
Chief,
Emergency Preparedness and Response,
Culture Sector, UNESCO

PDNA is a methodology that has been developed
jointly, following an agreement by the UN, the European Union, and the World Bank in 2008. Everything really started from the experience of the tsunami of 2005 when the countries affected by thisdisaster were overwhelmed by the fragmentation,
the lack of coordination of so many agencies thatwere trying to help them. It was felt that there wasa need for a common process following a single
methodology that the governments could cope withto conduct this very important process of identifying, assessing impacts, and planning for recovery.
So these three organizations came together. They
signed an agreement, and they started developing
the PDNA.
This PDNA is the last reincarnation of many
previous approaches and methodologies. There
was a first attempt by the World Bank in the Latin
American context to develop a methodology to assess the socioeconomic impacts of disasters. Thenthe World Bank refined this and created somethingcalled DALA, which stands for damage and losses
assessment. Then the UN came in and the consideration for the human development aspect of a disaster was brought into the picture. All of these combined then resulted in the PDNA.
What is new in the PDNA with respect to the previous versions? Well, initially, the emphasis was
mainly on the economic impact. Everyone wanted
to know how much money was needed to fix what
was broken. Now, on the other hand, we are trying
to look at the broader impacts of disasters on human development.
Also interestingly, and that’s why I’m here,
UNESCO was able to include a chapter on culture
as part of this methodology and I’m going to speak
to you about what this chapter looks like and what
could be the implications for our sector, also, inlight of what we have heard this morning and yesterday.
These are key steps to the PDNA. I’m not goingto go through all of this. By the way you have infront of you a printout of the culture chapter of this
PDNA, which is part of a publication that is availa− 127 −ble online, which is called Volume B of the PDNA.
However, there is also a Volume A which is the general methodology. This is also easily available fromthe Internet. As you can see, these are the typicalsteps of any sort of impact assessment process fromhaving baseline information, inventories all the way
down to writing the recovery strategy at the end of
the process.
A PDNA is something that happens typically a
few weeks after a major disaster and it’s meant toproduce a comprehensive report, multi-sectorial,
which includes not only an assessment about what
has happened, but also a recovery strategy basedon the needs identified. It’s the most important document that is used in fundraising activities. When
the UN calls for a consolidated appeal, when WorldBank and European Union put hundreds of millionsof dollars after tsunami and earthquake, this is typically based on the findings and proposals of a
PDNA. So that’s why it’s important that we are partof it.
There are four dimensions that PDNA considers
in its assessment of the effects of a disaster. First,
there is the physical impact on assets and infrastructure of the disaster on the affected area,. Then,
there is the effect of the disaster on the delivery ofservices, access to goods and services by the affected population, which is a different issue. Thirdly, there is the effect on the governance, decisionmaking processes of the local and national
authorities. Fourthly, the new risks and vulnerabilities that have been created by the disaster, whichwere not there before the event, but are now there
because of the disaster.
There is an economic valuation of the disaster
effects, which is articulated in damage and losses.
According to this terminology, damage means totalor partial destruction of physical assets and infrastructure. Losses, on the other hand, refer to additional costs or diminished revenues caused by thedisaster. To use a metaphor from the economic sector, damage could be assimilated to impact on
stocks, whereas losses concern effects on flows. If
possible, data related to damage and losses should

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

be put together, disaggregated between public andprivate and by districts.
In addition to economic evaluation of the effects
of a disaster, there are also the larger macroeconomic and human development impacts which
need to be considered. In economic terms, the macroeconomic impact of a disaster will be reflected on
the GDP, the balance of payments, meaning sort of
impact on the need by a country to draw on hardcurrency from other countries, as well as throughthe fiscal position of the State. So how much it is
impacted in terms of state budget, fiscal revenues,
and also overall employment income, by the population affected.
The human development impacts will refer to indicators agreed within human development indexes. There is also a recovery strategy that is developed, which is based on the sort of bullet points,
vision, recovery needs are identified, a plan isdrawn, implementation arrangements are clarified.
This includes crosscutting considerations and incorporates build-back better and disaster risk reduction provisions, so that when what has beendamaged is reconstructed, it is more resilient in theface of the next disaster event.
Now, the second part of my presentation is about
the culture PDNA. In our guidance that we have developed, we have assumed that as far as the culture
sector is concerned, we were looking at these fivethings, the built heritage, cultural and natural sites;
the movable properties and collections; intangible
cultural heritage; repositories of heritage, including
cultural centers, museums, archives, libraries, butalso theaters; and then cultural and creative industries.
The main challenge here, of course, is obtaining
reliable baseline data. Almost everywhere we goafter a disaster, we don’t have information concerning where are the things, what is there, how many
etcetera.
Now, you remember the four dimensions of assessing disaster impact. We had, of course, impact
on the physical aspects, total or partial destructionof monuments, sites, cultural repositories, equipment, infrastructure of the agencies in charge, but
in terms of service delivery, we have lack of accessto cultural heritage, for example people can no longer pray in their church - as we have seen yesterday
for the case of the Philippines. Disruption in the
production of cultural goods, people can no longer
produce crafts or music or videos because it’s notjust about heritage, it is also creativity, new things.

Inability to continue to educate your children in artsand music or your own mother language, everything which is related to the possibility of people tobenefit from culture.
Then you have the third aspect, effects on theability of agencies in charge of the cultural sector to
respond, to operate. Finally, new risks resulting
from the disaster, for example, monument, which is
at a risk of collapse, is destabilized by earthquake.
Or the risk of looting following the disruption ingovernance caused by a disaster.
Here the culture sector has a specific challenge.
In some cases, some places are not easily reconstructable because, of course, they are historicbuildings, so it’s hard to say, okay, we lost say the
Taj Mahal, how much does it cost to rebuild it? Itcannot be easily rebuilt. It will never be the same.
So here, there is a consideration about what sort ofalternative solutions could be envisaged to address
the needs that have been created by the disaster.
The manual elaborates on this. And then losses,
for example, diminished revenues and/or additional costs from temporary closure of cultural resources, cancellation of cultural events, costs for emergency measures to prevent further damage. For
example, to prop up a building, which is about tocollapse is one economic loss, but to reconstruct it,
it’s damage. There is a distinction that economists
make in accounting for the financial dimension of adisaster, which to us heritage people may not be soimportant, but for them it is capital and fundamental. To mix the two is capital sin in economy, I was
explained.
The cost to ensure continuity of cultural services
is also essential. The temporary church in the Philippines had to pay for it to reduce new risks.
What I’m going to say in the next 2 minutes isthat it’s very challenging to identify the impacts associated to the cultural sectors to human development, because the UN doesn’t have an index of human development indicators that include us. So wehave to come up with some ideas which are here
and more in detail in the guidance and I need yourhelp in coming up with good suggestions.
The recovery strategy is also presented in the
manual. In terms of implementation, clearly weneed teams to be able to do this, which include thecultural economists, and anthropologists, architects, museum experts, etcetera. We need to train
them. We need to have consultation processes onsite, to have synergies with other teams that are undertaking PDNA for other sectors. The good thing− 128 −

(Session 5)with PDNA is that people who do this are often all
into the same room in the UN premises, typically inthe capital and so you are doing your PDNA culture
and the expert for housing or infrastructure is rightnext to you. So he is planning, for example, for thereconstruction of the airport and you can talk to
him and say sorry, don’t put your airport on my archaeological site, put it somewhere else. This was
not possible until PDNA included culture.
What does this mean for us? the PDNA offers agreat opportunity for us to bring together, strengthen the integration of our sector with the DRR. We
also have an opportunity through PDNA to finallybring together the different strands of the culture
sector, the movable, immovable, tangible, and also

− 129 −

the heritage and creativity.
We need to build our own capacity to assist member states in doing this. We need teams in different
continents, speaking different languages. We needto draw on the ICOMOS–ICORP and ICOM committees to build our own institutional capacity to do
this. We need to refine progressively our approach,building on experiences. The Samoa case has lessons that can be learnt. We recently did it in Albania
and Serbia. Finally, we have to do the same for another process called post-conflict needs assessmentthat has a similar machinery and where we are notthere yet. I look forward to working with all of you
to be able to put this in practice. Thank you somuch.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Presentation (5-2)
PDNA Needs in the Pacific Region
Paula Holland
Manager, Natural Resources, Governance,
Secretariat of the Pacific Community

The Pacific has a substantial regional architecturewith around 10 intergovernmental (regional) organizations that assist Pacific small island developing states to tackle a number of development issues.
The Pacific Community (SPC) is the oldest of these,comprising 22 Pacific small island states and 4 metropolitan countries. Targeting development, SPC
has the regional mandate (among other issues) to
support capacity building in disaster risk management (DRM) in the Pacific region. That includes
running the regional platform on DRM as well asreporting on that, coordinating DRM capacity building and keeping people talking. SPC also has theregional mandate to support culture and heritage,
its development and protection. This includes thehosting of the 4 yearly Pacific heritage or cultural
festival and also the promotion of cultural industries
for development.
In terms of disasters, the Pacific region experiences a wide gamut of natural hazards and related
disasters. Located in both the middle of the Ring ofFire and the cyclone belt, the area experiences bothseismic and hydrometeorological disasters yearly.
On average, the region experiences over 21 nationally declared disasters a year.
A big issue in the Pacific at the moment is climate change and sea level rise. A lot of our countries are very low-lying. That means sea level rise
can increase the risk of inundation from the sea andimpacts on communities.
Conventional disaster assessment in the Pacifichas focused on damage assessment and there has
been limited attention given to assessing the losses
arising from that damage. However, if we don’tknow where the losses are and what they mean, we
cannot plan effectively for recovery. (As an indication of the importance of this, of the three PDNAs
conducted in the Pacific to date, losses were estimated to equal 50 to 100 per cent of damage costs.)
There has also traditionally been a lack of systematic inclusion by governments of the impacts of disasters on communities.
So, SPC is interested in using PDNA as a way ofbringing together both damage and loss assess-ment and linking it to the impacts on communities.
This allows us, with our mandate, to look at peoplecentered development in the Pacific.
Getting back to culture: there has generally been
little assessment in the Pacific of the impacts of disasters on culture, such that cultural impacts havetraditionally been underestimated. There has also
been limited focus on intangible impacts; yet these
impacts are important. As an example, the tsunami
of 2009 killed two of the three people employed at
the American Samoan national museum to train
people how to weave and keep this skill going. The
death of these individuals reflects the loss of accessto traditional skills and history. There is also an impact on biodiversity and incomes. Such impacts are
not conventionally considered in Pacific disaster assessments.
The Pacific culture community is interested in
PDNA to ensure that the impact of disasters on culture is part of the story of assessment and planning.
They are interested in the impacts on the culture
sector in terms of assets and skills, the impacts on
producers, and also as a means informedly to planahead. But we should not lose sight of the importance also of value as a means to draw the attentionof Finance Ministries and Treasuries to what is going on.
To date, three PDNAs have been conducted in
the region, two of which explicitly recognized culture and heritage by, for example, including a description of physical impacts, and related changes
in tourism- and commercial-related earnings. Thisis an important step in the Pacific because the
PDNA is handled by Finance Ministries. The PDNAs therefore provided the opportunity to begin to
mainstream culture to disaster assessments and recovery planning.
It’s not just about itemizing the issues, althoughthat in itself is a significant achievement. It’s also
about describing them and explaining why they’reimportant. This becomes part of the awareness raising with government ministries not dealing with
culture, not least because PDNAs in the Pacific are
run through Ministries of Finance. A discussion oc− 130 −(Session 5)

curred yesterday about whether or not there should
be a valuation of intangible costs in the cultural sector from disasters. As I said then, it is not just about
the numbers that come out at the end; it’s also theprocess that is important. If a Ministry of Financeruns a post disaster needs assessment and people
working in that office continually hear about therole that a cultural asset had in generating economic and social well-being, this raises their awarenessand contributes to a business case for supporting
recovery in the culture sector. PDNAs provide an
entry point for planning and investment for the culture sector.
SPC is presently working with the World Bank to
finalize a proposal to establish a pool of experts in
key sectors in PDNA. This includes tailoring existing training materials to the Pacific context, training the individuals and supporting them in the field

Fig.1: Total natural hazard-related disasters in the Pacific 1983-2012 by type− 131 −

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

to apply their skills in real life situations. The idea isthat, over time, Pacific dependence on outside experts can fall so that we can have islanders in control of the assessments.
We want to share lessons and we want to generate locally relevant materials. We want to have casestudies so that we can understand how assessments
can inform recovery and plan ahead. Ultimately wewant to institutionalize the principles of PDNA to
DRM. This is the beginning. One of the three PDNAs conducted in the Pacific was done in Fiji. At thetime, the government was not convinced of the value of conducting a PDNA but agreed to give it a try
nevertheless. The results so impressed them that
the Minister responsible for disasters stated that
the PDNA would be the way disasters assessments
would be conducted from hereon in.
Nevertheless, there are challenges for the Pacific region in pursuing PDNAs, especially for the culture sector. First, Pacific culture and heritage departments are generally small with limited staff andresources to cover assessments. Mainstreaming
culture and heritage to disaster assessments andfinancing decisions requires more people on the
ground. (This is probably a challenge for a lot ofsectors.) Second is the question of intangibles andhow we deal with this. At the moment, just getting
the impacts on disasters on the culture and heritage
sector described in a PDNA is a significant change
for disaster assessments. Yet the issue remains ofaccounting for items whose values are not immediately apparent, such as the activities that keep communities cohesive or the chiefly systems that limit
crime. How do we deal with this? Economic valuation methodologies exist but the Pacific only has alimited number of practitioners. Representatives of
the culture sector have expressed a desire for training in this area so that they can come to grips with
the issues.

Also, some representatives of the culture sector
feel that they are bypassed when it comes to disasters; that they are not invited to the table or considered when there’s a disaster assessment going on.
This means that we need to do something about
this.
In terms of a way ahead, there is then a need toinfluence decision makers. We need to share experiences globally of cultural and heritage assessments that are done through PDNA, show how it
was done, and show an effective range. We need
one or two really effective case studies that we cantake back to Pacific small island developing statesthat resonate with them, and which demonstrate tothose sectors not dealing in cultural heritage themerit of including cultural impacts. There needs tobe better access for the culture and heritage community in post-disaster assessments.
The culture and heritage community in the Pacific have specifically requested training in economic assessment, especially with traditional knowledge and skills. This is something that we are goingto look at but, because PDNA is a new thing in the
Pacific, this requires a long term program of activities over time. We can start with encouraging listingand descriptions and then we can move in that direction.
The Pacific needs to learn from other countries.
That means that data and experiences need to beaccessible. We need to know who’s got that information, how we can share and how we can learn.
We need a lot of dialog.
We are starting with PDNA and are trying totake account of culture and heritage at the beginning of the story, to set the way ahead. It is really
going to be a long journey and any help that we canget from the outside is gratefully received. Thankyou.

− 132 −

(Session 5)

Presentation (5-3)
Integration of Disaster Risk Analysis into Heritage Research Methodologies
Mikio Koshihara
Professor,
Department of Human and Social Systems,
Institute of Industrial Science,
University of Tokyo

My topic will be somewhat different from what has
been discussed thus far. Moreover, I should pointout that I am a structural engineer by training. As
such, what I shall discuss might be a little difficult
to appreciate, however, if you stick with me to theend, I believe you shall be able to understand theintent that I hope to convey. As an academic, myresearch deals with the sort of wooden buildingsthat are found here in Japan, and I have a particularinterest in the nature of the aseismic capacity traits
they exhibit. To express my academic interest interms of today’s theme, you could say that I have aninterest in disasters within the context of the many
great wooden buildings that are found here in Japan. As to such buildings, and indeed with respect
to all structures, today I would like to offer somethoughts as to the structural properties that they
possess.
Japan is subject to a great variety of events including fires and earthquakes. We are also impacted by typhoons, heavy snowfalls, and flooding.
Among such phenomena, however, the earthquakes stand alone. With the other disasters justmentioned, we now have the means at our disposal
to either predict them outright or to predict the possibility of their occurrence with some degree of accuracy. For example, we know when a typhoon will
arrive. We also know when either a heavy snowfall
or a flooding event are likely to occur. Of coursewith fires, it is true to say that we cannot predict
when they will break out. However, even when theydo, it still takes time for a blaze to increase in sizeand ferocity. By contrast, earthquakes are different;
we just don’t know when they will occur. Additionally, there is no way of knowing just how big they
will be when they do finally strike. In light of suchrealities, we have to give some consideration to theissue of aseismic capacity. I would suggest thatearthquakes as a form of disaster present us with arather unique set of circumstances. If that argument is accepted, then what about when the engineering issues that earthquakes entail are actuallyconsidered? To what extent do we understand the− 133 −

concept of aseismic capacity? In responding to suchquestions, I would like to refer to the case of thebuilding damaged as a result of the Noto Peninsula
Earthquake that struck in Japan back in 2007. Using a computer simulation allows us to appreciate
what actually happened when the earthquake
struck. Up until now, it has been very difficult toanalyze what happens to wooden buildings undersuch circumstances. Using the computer simulation, it becomes possible to recreate the circumstances that resulted in the building ending up witha tilt like this. In other words, as an analysis technology, little-by-little the simulation process allows foran evaluation of what will happen under a given setof circumstances. Thus, with such an earthquakeand such a building as is used in this simulation, we
may evaluate that a structure may end up looking
something like this. However, much in the same
way as was alluded to earlier in that there exists a
great variety of different buildings, there also exists
a great variety of different earthquakes. Thus, weare unable to build structures whose construction
is able to match (or counter) all types of earthquakes. If such a premise is indeed accepted, then amajor issue becomes the process by which we go
about accommodating such issues of risk management.
I suppose the next question then becomes how
we are able to know the sort of aseismic performance that was just shown. Well, the answer to thatis a process called “aseismic diagnosis.” Concerning a building, there are the structural elementsfrom which it is comprised, and data is clearly recorded as to the nature and status of such factors.
What you see here is an example of such information which up until now has been prepared by structural engineers. However, I don’t believe that doing
such work should be the sole preserve of the structural engineer, rather it is a task that both historicalresearchers and building owners should also be doing. The reason I believe this, is because the question needs to be asked as to what or who actually
decides the aseismic capacity of a building like this.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

I believe it is not just the structural engineer, butrather all of the people who have any form of involvement with the building. Thus, I feel such data
is something that should be shared by everybody. If
it happens, then everybody will know what is important for aseismic capacity, and what factors or
structural elements do not have a great impact. The
data highlights the position of the pillars and thewalls, and the condition of the joints that connect
together the pillars and the beams, etc. It is simply
a case of looking to check if there are any areas ofdeterioration. If this can be achieved, then structural testing can be conducted in accordance withthe facts presented by the data. Furthermore, if
steps are taken to model variables such as the distinctive properties possessed by the joints of abuilding, its partitioning walls and its earthen walls,
then it shall be possible to simulate what will happen to such a building in the event of an earthquake.
Such tasks are not something to be completed
by structural engineers alone, rather they need to
be shared with all of the people who have any formof involvement with the building in question. However, in that it should be realized that structural elements like those I have discussed are actually infinite in number, it is important that there be someform of organization in their management. Moreover, because of the differences that exist between
countries and regions with respect to the construction methods that they choose to employ, it is important that an attempt be made to share databasesthat deal with structural elements. If we achievethis, we could advance the measures that Japan iscurrently applying in understanding aseismic performance and in the attempts of seismicallystrengthen the buildings. At this point, however, I
should perhaps describe what I mean by seismicstrengthening within this context. What I am describing are those measures that see the insertionof steel frames, the inclusion of low-visibility walls(which nevertheless work to reinforce structures),and the strengthening of joints via the application of
metal bracings. If the practice of such seismicstrengthening is to be applied to individual buildings, it equates to the addition of some new form ofmaterial in each case. Furthermore, since modernmaterials are more easily understood by stakeholders, what is being promoted here in Japan is the insertion of steel products. If such measures are applied to each and every building, the problems likethose will arise. However, if a policy of seismicstrengthening is conducted, concerning the towns
and the buildings, it shall be possible to appreciate
the manner in which the buildings will shake dur-

ing an earthquake. It is within such a context thatthe effectiveness of the sort of analysis I have discussed is being verified.
As to the idea of considering the aseismic capacity of each and every building in this way, it is one
possible approach, but if considered in terms of the
traditional townscape that is encountered in Japan,
it is definitely not the case that each and every
building has been built entirely independent of one
another. While individual buildings sited separately
might nevertheless shake randomly from one another where there are roads to intersect between
them, in those locations where they are lined up,
they tend to move in unison together. If that is indeed the case, from the structural perspective, inthis instance shown here there are not three separate buildings, but rather only one. In other words,
rather than the characteristics of an individual
building, what leads to changes in aseismic performance under such circumstances are the factors ofgeographic location and placement considerations.
Furthermore, if it is determined that aseismic performance can be changed, it then also becomes possible to change the policies employed in seismicstrengthening.
I would like to refer to the footage that shows anumber of houses built side-by-side in Sawara City,
Chiba Prefecture. Obviously, there has been someearthquake damage, however, among the five or sobuildings lined up in a row, some of them were damaged while others were not. For instance, tiled roofsof some buildings had collapsed. It can be seen thatthe buildings in one vicinity are shaking much more
violently than the others. In other words, although
there are five buildings lined up together side-byside, the manner in which each is shaking tends todiffer from its neighbors. Those buildings that are
structurally weak appear to be shaking more violently while the others can be seen as not reallyshaking much at all.
Concerning the example shown in the footage,
when actually trying to recreate it and analyze it using a computer simulation, what happens is that the
weak buildings in this area are seen to shake violently while the ones around them don't really exhibit much movement. Thus, even if built on thesame site, the aseismic performance of buildings
can vary based on their specifications. As such,even if one of the buildings had tried to collapse under the stresses exerted by the earthquake, there
remained the possibility that the buildings around it
would support it. In light of this, there also seems to
be an alternative solution that runs along the following lines. Namely, while thinking about the aseis− 134 −(Session 5)

mic performance of each and every building, it isalso necessary to thoroughly consider the conditions under which they are built. One of the buildings was greatly damaged. However, while the roofing collapsed, the underlying structure was not
greatly impacted. With consideration to the landscape on which the building was sited, repair
proved possible without the necessity of having toraise the aseismic performance of the building itself. Truthfully speaking, however, somethingshould have been done to raise its aseismic performance. While one possible solution might havebeen to raise the aseismic performance of an individual building, in the case of a number of buildings
lined up together, by surrounding the weak buildings with strong ones, it is possible for the weakerones to lean on the strong. On the other hand, tothe stand-alone buildings, probably, not much canbe done to add to their aseismic performance. Especially strong buildings are commonly used as disaster-preparedness hubs and public facilities. Meanwhile, sometimes the homes of private individuals,
even without much intervention, retain a certain
cultural value and also possess the aseismic performance.
Along these lines, government agencies or researchers create similar databases and then engage
in analysis. Next, they secure subsidies so that they
could engage in activities which encouraged the
populace to both undertake seismic diagnoses ofbuildings and carry out seismic strengthening
measures. Meanwhile, people living in such buildings should proactively sought to have both seismic
diagnoses and seismic strengthening done. However, it is important to remember that there is no
single answer when responding to such issues. As I
have stated earlier, the specific properties that arepossessed by buildings vary for each individual
building, and such properties can also change depending on considerations such as the geographic
location of a building. In other words, there are lotsof possible choices and variables to consider. Thus,
the issue arises which of the methods to choose. If
somebody decides that they want to raise the aseismic performance of their building, the clear presentation of the wide variety of methods to choose frombecomes an issue. Indeed, if the building in question is similar to the kind of structures that I described, the whole argumentation would be rather
difficult to understand. Then again, if building owners and users cannot understand such difficult arguments, then the efforts that are being made topromote these measures shall stall. In the beginning of my speech I noted that it may be difficult to− 135 −

comprehend, because I will talk about structural
engineering. If specialists like myself resort to describing the topic in such terms, imagine how building owners must be feeling about it.
As to the building that made an appearance atthe outset of my speech, I should point out that its
design was one that might have been expected to
fail in light of the type of earthquake that hit it.
Luckily, however, immediately next door to it was avery strong structure which meant that, even withbroken pillars, it did not end up collapsing. Well, if
that is what occurred, could the building I discussed be described as having a strong aseismic
performance? Would there be no problem in people
continuing to live in it? Unfortunately, that is probably not the case. We should question what would
happen if a slightly stronger earthquake occurred?
If the same building was relocated about 500 meters
away and experienced the seismic shock waves of asimilar force, it would be most unfortunately collapsed. Consequently, what can be argued is as follows: within the context of the present earthquake,it might well be that the building I discussed remained standing due to its location. Moreover,there is no way of knowing how long it might remain standing. Indeed, that is something that I
don’t know myself. Although through analysis I
have come to understand some of the properties
that a building possesses, speaking more broadly,
we still do not know what type of earthquakes will
come to this area. Therefore, it is important that westart to talk to people by thoroughly conveying
what we do know, and also by reaching a consensus
on what we don’t know and being up front withthem about the matters. To achieve this, rather thantalking to professionals, it is important to think of
how such information can be conveyed to thosepeople who live in such buildings. Thus, as I mentioned earlier, it is important to share informationby conducting aseismic diagnosis and aseismic
strengthening activities together, and by explaining
to people the structural properties that buildings
possess. Furthermore, unless we share information
with owners about the historical values and theaseismic properties of historically significant buildings, the owners are prone to decide that total rebuilding and new structures are a much safer option.
In closing, I wanted to stress the importance ofbeing able to convey such ideas to building owners.
Thank you very much.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Presentation (5-4)
Building and Strengthening Partnerships: With Whom and How
Shen-Wen Chien
Professor,
Central Police University, Taiwan

It is my great honor to have the opportunity to present this topic, “Building and Strengthening Partnerships: With Whom and How,” based on the Taiwan experience.
Cultural heritage and historic buildings in Taiwan are exposed to natural disasters and challenges, including typhoons, earthquakes and fires. Natural disasters pose significant threats to historicbuildings as they may lead to destruction of thesetypes of property. However, in the past, we have always only focused on life safety and post-disasterrecovery when disasters have struck. As a result,
heritage preser¬vation in natural disaster situations
has often been neglected.
After our participation in the UNESCO Chair
Training Course at Ritsumeikan University in 2008,
our domestic departments gradually started to pay
attention to heritage protection and risk identification. Today, Taiwan is still progressing and striving
to increase heritage preservation, awareness, andto amend related regulations.
This slide illustrates our participation in the UNESCO Chair Training Course on Disaster Risk
Management of Cultural Heritage. Based on thein¬structions from Ritsumeikan University professors and UNESCO experts, we started to build up
the international partnerships.
This slide was proposed by one of my classmateswhen I attended the UNESCO International Training Course. He drew out many disaster risk factors,
such as earthquakes, landslides, tornados, andfires, with special emphasis on arson, and emphasized our interdependence in heritage preservation.
Recent regulation changes in Taiwan now require heritage site managers to propose fire safety
and building safety response measures, according
to preservation goals, and disaster risk analysis inorder to get permission for their reuse or rehabilitation from a joint reviewing committee. We established a strike angle like an initiative to promoteand enhance preservation for heritage, and createdpartnerships among public and the private sectors.
It is important not only to build partnerships

among the Central Police University, National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction, and Society of Fire Protection Engineers, butalso to connect with and influence the Ministry of
Culture and other government departments, suchas the National Fire Agency and Ministry of Science and Technology. Meanwhile, we are fortunate
to have many chances to be invited to educate sitemanagers, citizens and volunteers. We also established a training course for architects and fire engineers. These opportunities help to bring forward
issues and help to influence legislative guidelines
for disaster risk as¬sessment and emergency response plans for cul¬tural heritage and historicbuildings.
The guidelines for fire prevention and fire rescue for cultural heritage and historic buildings, published by National Fire Agency in 2009, have established formal partnerships among the fire
prevention organizations and the cultural preservation organizations. It is a breakaway from taking apassive stance on operations outside one’s own
regulatory authority.
We have many challenges to attend to in the review process for assessing the reuse and renovationplans for historic buildings. There are three highly
important and beautiful historic buildings in Taiwan. The first is the Wufeng Lin Family Mansion, aQing dynasty wooden structure. The second is the
National Taiwan Museum, originally constructed inmemory of two great Japanese who made great contributions to Taiwan’s modernization. The third is
the Lukang Longshan Temple, very elegant. You
are welcome to visit them. We can guide you to takea wonderful tour.
Taiwan always focuses on strengthening the performance of disaster prevention and mitigation
strategies. That is why we added the arson scenario
as part of the emergency response plan in order toincrease the focus on fire protection, performance
design, and its harmonization with heritage preservation.
In 2013, our research team visited the Qionglin
Settlement located in Kinmen, an island very close− 136 −

(Session 5)

Fig.1: Fire safety education, training and drills for stakeholders

to mainland China, and organized a risk
identifi¬cation training for the stakeholders. This
training course is designed based on UNESCO’sconcept and operations and modified according to
Taiwan’s human and social factors. In this course,
the stakeholders have learned how to identify disaster risks through understanding disaster scenariosand developing the ability to help themselves.
We can see that this gentleman can easily operate the fire hydrant by himself, although he is over
75 years old. We also educate and train senior citizens to protect their ancient family structures byusing fire extinguishers and a set of garden hoseand nozzle. We recommend changing the emergency response plan for fire exercises. We establishedsmall wooden structures and educated citizens touse carbon dioxide fire extinguishers and water
mist equipment to control Class A fires.
Through attending trainings and seminars, Taiwan has been able to learn current internationalguide¬lines and trends in heritage preservation. We
have hosted three international exchange meetings. In 2010, during the exchange meeting for
SFPE Asia-Oceania Chapters, we focused on firerisk analysis and response plans regarding heritageand historic buildings. In 2011, based on Akiko
Umezu and Ai Sekizawa’s kind arrangement, we attended trainings for disaster protection of cultural− 137 −

heritage in Japan. In 2013, during a seminar on integration strategies of fire protection for cultural heritage, we arranged a very special visiting tour forthe most important historic buildings, such as the
President’s Office and the Guesthouse.
Participation in these types of events also allowed Taiwan to connect and exchange experiences with international scholars and experts.
We have already finished a study on disaster risk
assessment and a mitigation plan for cultural heritage. Actually, it is an integrated research with four
sub-projects. The first deals with assets assessment
to identify targets to be protected and to enhance
public sector systems of laws and standards. The
second deals with disaster risk assessment techniques and education for the private sector to complete response plans for the reuse of heritage. The
third deals with community-based disaster protection systems and enhancing cooperative assistanceamong public and private partnership. The last one
is a study on disaster emergency response and local
rescue skills.
Now we are working on identifying risk factors
for historic buildings and on conducting researchfor scenario-based solutions using a fire spreading
model. We selected a Qing dynasty wooden structure, Jiying Temple in Taipei. We use Fire DynamicSim¬ulator software to construct a 3-D simulation

Tokyo Strategy Meetingand to evaluate the safe distance needed to prevent
fire spread from nearby neighborhoods to the temple. This Jiying Temple is located very close to avery traditional night market, and the streets in thisarea are very narrow and difficult to evacuate andperform fire rescue operations. There are many
food vendors and there is a high fire risk because of
the many gas cylinders. So, we created regulations
according to the defined fire size and fire source
loca¬tion, and the fire growth rate, and the latenight timing.
Let’s move on to the conclusions and suggestions. Although the protection systems inside historic buildings are in compliance with code
require¬ments, fire risks still exist. The purpose of

the fire risk identification is to find solutions to enhance the building’s overall fire safety level, not justto install one kind of a fire protection system.
The risk factors and the suggestions identified
by an inspector can be filled out in the remarks column of a checklist, not only based on points. Finally,
we strongly recommend a simple and visible operation for the users, especially for senior citizens,based on the fire risk identification procedures andscenarios. This is a key point.
Taiwan will continue to make efforts by taking
actions in accordance with the objectives andac¬tions for risk reduction for heritage adopted by
UNESCO. Thank you very much.

− 138 −

(Session 5)

Roundtable Discussion[Facilitators]
Timothy Curtis, Akiko Umezu

Rujaya Abhakorn (SEAMEO-SPAFA)
First, let me briefly introduce you to what SEMEOSPAFA does. Then, I will talk about our small meeting on cultural heritage and disaster risk reductionthat we held in 2013 with support from Japan Foundation.
SEAMEO is the Southeast Asian Ministers of
Education Organization, and SPAFA means Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts. SEAMEO
is a consortium founded 50 years ago, before theestablishment of ASEAN, for the purpose of promoting cooperation in the field of education. Therefore, the operational mechanism of our organization
runs through the consortium centers all over theSoutheast Asia. Currently, we have 18 centers related to science, culture and education. The center
that I am acting as the Director of is classified into
culture.
Our center was founded over 30 years ago. In the
beginning, we were dealing with the two academic
subjects of archaeology and fine arts, which are notsubjects, but rather groups of subjects. Our task
has been to promote capacity building, interaction,awareness raising for cultural matters and arts, andmost importantly, fostering connectivity between
Southeast Asian countries. We have been concentrating on academic subjects until recently. Since I
became the Director of SPAFA, we had a good cooperation with ICCROM on the CollAsia 2010 program. As it came to the end, I thought that we might
move more into conservation activities, taking into
account the context of living in the tropics. There
are similar issues and problems that we all face inSoutheast Asia, so we set up joint conservation topics. Among them, there were two fundamental projects related to the 2011 flooding in Bangkok. Oneof the projects was the compilation, conservation,and digitization of palm leaf manuscripts.
Heritage in Thailand is mainly concentrated intemples. There are 20,000 temples all over thecountry and various works of arts̶especially theknowledge inscribed on palm leaf manuscripts̶
are stored in them. Different Thai-speaking communities, as well as Mon and Myanmar, use palm
− 139 −

leaf manuscripts in religious occasions and teaching. While palm leaves are very durable, they arealways in a threatened state because termites likeeating them. It is not a sudden disaster, but a routine, everyday disaster. Therefore, we concentrate
more on preventive methods, than on disaster problem solving.
We conducted activities to bring these problems
into attention. There was a temple that was flooded
and, with the support from Prince Claus Fund, efforts were made to restore it in cooperation withgovernment and universities. Our budget was limited to less than US$1 million, so there was notmuch we could do. But one important task within
our capacity was to create a positive impact on local
communities.
In the conclusions of our conference on disasterrisk reduction, we had a clause saying that local
communities should educate government agencies
in regard to cultural heritage and traditional knowledge. Other conclusions and recommendations are
already published. Roughly, we would like to continue managing the recordkeeping, so that traditional knowledge can be collected and appropriately
used. We are not very good at recordkeeping inSoutheast Asia because of the climate. We havebeen rather careless about it. But for disaster risk
assessment, we should do more, and we shouldhave better cooperation and coordination between
national and local levels, between communities andthe government.
Lastly, I think it is important that we are involvedin education on this matter; and gaining strengthfrom there, we will be able to do more in that area.
At the conference, we suggested that there should
be a multidisciplinary action. There should beknowledge from the community, learning and information banks, such as data on the various disasters
that occur, and we should provide more education.
It will not be easy to coordinate in the 11 countriesof Southeast Asia, that is millions of people. Education on disaster preparedness will not be easy toprovide, but I think it could be incorporated somewhere into the school curriculum, for example, in a

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

regional history course, to raise awareness among
young people and teach them how to behave in thiskind of situation.
I apologize that I cannot provide you with more
information, but what I envision now, as a director
at the moment, we are about to work into a 5-yearplan in which we will work on transmitting knowledge and training people. As you know, it is easierto train people in Bangkok than to send them toRome or other places, because maybe one trainee at
ICOM will cost the same as about five Indonesians
trained in Bangkok.
On this occasion, I would like to ask your support. We would be grateful for your suggestions andrecommendations regarding our goals, and we arealso looking for cooperation in the field. Our centerhas a website. We are also present on YouTube, Facebook and other social networks.
There are multiple ways of bringing benefits to
the region, and mechanisms for this are in place.
We have all the ministries of education and all theministries of culture, which are supposed to handle
these things, but they donʼt do so well. In a sameway, I donʼt have the authority to say what should bedone in Japan or in Taiwan. My role is small and I
cannot do much, but I am open to any advice and toopportunities to work it out together. Thank youvery much.
Robyn Riddett (ICOMOS-ICORP):
I would like to say thank you to the organizers forthe invitation and the opportunity to be able to help
mainstream cultural heritage in DRR at this verysignificant and important event. Following a major,and sometimes a minor disaster, an often so-called
PDNA is undertaken. They often comprise separate
analyses and assessments, carried out by separate
agencies, focusing on their sector and with little
crossover or consideration of other sectors, even
where there may be a common interest.
This process typically reflects the organizational
structures of aid agencies, and the overall disaster
response and recovery plan, which may be in place.
In these circumstances, humanitarian needs, infrastructure, and public safety are the priorities andthe almost exclusive focus of emergency responders who are not aware of the value of cultural heritage and the potential of its recovery. Cultural heritage may have survived the initial disaster withminor or repairable damage, but by being unattended, it often suffers further.
Culture Canʼt Wait. Cultural heritage needs to bebrought up the priority scale and to be embedded
into the wider response and recovery plans. We arevery good at understanding and managing cultural
heritage, but we are not good at selling the message
to others. We need to rebrand and repackage ourmessage to get it into the mainstream consciousness and priorities and re-level the play field.
After the 2010 earthquake in Christchurch, New
Zealand, ICOMOS New Zealand formally promoted
the idea to the effect that “Protection of heritage
fabric at the highest level may also be seen as promoting the protection of human life.” They revised
the ICOMOS New Zealand Charter for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Heritage Value, 2010 andincluded an article which now states:“Places of cultural heritage value may be vulnerable to natural disasters such as floods, storms, or
earthquakes. In order to safeguard cultural heritage value, planning for risk mitigation and emergency management is necessary. Potential risks toany place of cultural heritage value should be assessed. Where appropriate, a risk mitigation plan,an emergency plan, and/or a protection plan should
be prepared, and implemented as far as possible,
with reference to a conservation plan.”
The important point of this is that the risk analysis has been embedded into the heritage protection
process.
The post disaster environment can be challenging and dramatic, where the most urgent task is tofocus on the obvious humanitarian needs. However,at this stage it is also essential to focus on the futureand strategies for recovery and longer-term resilience. Therefore, it is vital to develop a comprehensive recovery plan, which considers damage andlosses caused by the disaster and recognizes all
facets of societal culture and needs, so that the recovery is long-term, viable and sustainable.
I would now like to offer some thoughts as towhat a good PDNA should do. It should:
Be fit for the purpose at all levels.
Cover all aspects including humanitarian,
economic, agriculture, governance structures, development, insurance, infrastructure etc. in a single overarching assessment, and cover both short- and long-term
needs.
Involve the affected community in thedata collection, analysis and planningphases, so as to engender ownership ofthe future recovery strategy.
Seek meaningful commitment and sup− 140 −(Session 5)

port from all levels of government, andcommunity groups, and hierarchies (religious, professional [doctors, farmers, heritage specialists], ethnic, tribal etc.) andthe fullest possible engagement of local
authorities and community-based organizations in the planning and execution of
the initial recovery, while building specificcapacities and the advanced skills basewhere needed.
Be expressed in writing and clearly communicated in a manner that is understandable to all stakeholders.
Be cognizant and respectful of local cultural practices and structured in a manner
acceptable, and therefore implementable,
by relevant authorities and communities.
Be free from political interference andcorruption, which was certainly not thecase in the episode of the Christchurch
earthquake.
Identify the needs for short-, medium-,and long-term, which will lead to a sustainable recovery, greater awareness and future resilience in communities.
Realistically assess the integrated bottom
up and top down available resources, andthe logistics for mobilization at the appropriate level, which might be multi-tiered,national, regional, provincial, state or local.
Include strategies which require communication, co-operation, and coordination of
all stakeholders at all stages of the process
and at all levels that is “multiple stakeholders with a single focus, moving forward
together, sustainably over the longer
term.”
What that means is adopting the conference
theme written in the ICOMOS-ICORP brochuresprovided. In other words, it is getting to know eachother, it is the first step to future cooperation andcultural heritage DRR. I commend you to read thewords of wisdom in these ICOMOS-ICORP brochures. The PDNA should also:
Adhere to the principle of Primum nonnocere̶“first, do no harm”̶ensuringthat the process does not have a detrimental effect on life-saving relief to the affected population, the area or its culture.
Be sensitive to short-term trauma and dysfunction, but lead stakeholders towards− 141 −

longer term stability and sustainable practices.
Find opportunities for the practical involvement of local citizens and utilize traditional knowledge and vernacular techniques while embracing the new.
Eventually put in place a better approach,which encourages authorities and communities to not repeat the mistakes of thepast; that is, settlement patterns change
landscape, seascape, ecology, which
played a part in the current disaster. While
there may be common methodologies underlying the approach to developing
PDNA, it is not simply “one-size-fits-all.”Finally, it should be tailored for the specific need, and specific community, andthe specific circumstances.
Further guidance can be found in the Giovanni
Boccardiʼs document that he referred to earlier.
Thank you.
Ai Sekizawa (Tokyo University of Science):
I am participating in this meeting as an expert infire prevention. Along the lines of the conference
theme “Cultural Heritage and Disaster Resilient
Communities,” I would like to make a brief presentation on earthquake-related fires, which is an important DRR issue in Japan, and on cultural heritage DRR against earthquake-related fires.
Japan is an earthquake country. Following thelatest big earthquake, big tsunamis hit Japan. Conventionally, however, fires̶particularly fires in urban areas̶resulting from earthquakes have been
considered the biggest issue. For example, the big
earthquake that occurred at Kobe around twenty
years ago caused multiple fires. Not just one fireburned in one place, but series of fires occurred at
different places simultaneously in small districts. In
one district, as many as 13 outbreaks of fires werereported. However, there were only 5 fire engines
in the district. How can we put out fires at 13 places
with only 5 fire engines? I always ask this question
to the audience whenever I present this topic. The
answer is quite simple. It is impossible. In fact, outof these 13, 11 of them spread and turned into massive fires. Only fires at 2 places could be extinguished by 5 brigades. This is the reality.
In the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, because ofstrong winds, about two thirds of Tokyo was burned
to ashes. Just as in Kobe Earthquake, the concretebuildings were intact, but all the wooden structures

Tokyo Strategy Meetingwere burned down. What I would like to show you
here is an effective condition to control fires. It issaid that it would be possible for professional firefighting teams to control fires when the number offire engines are equal to the number of fires occurring. However, when the number of fires is increased above that, the situations become worseand get out of control.
In order to recover an appropriate balance, weneed to add volunteer actions. The number of fireengines is limited. Therefore, community members
need to tackle fires on their own, using fire hydrant
equipment or portable pumps. This is a power ofdisaster resilient communities. In Japan, even in Tokyo, citizens are well aware that they cannot andshould not fully rely on public firefighting services
in the event of a severe earthquake. Therefore, local communities are voluntarily involved in disasterprevention activities. I would like to introduce someexamples.
In historic districts with traditional wooden
houses, fire hydrant equipment covered by wooden
boxes is installed at regular intervals or in places
easily accessible to each house. In each box, nozzle
hoses are connected to a fire hydrant standpipe, sothat people can use it alone and quickly when theoccasion demands.
Not only in the historic districts but also in general residential areas of wooden dwellings, local
populations regularly conduct fire drills. In one
small town, residents gather in a small park to havea fire drill every month. Male groups usually use
slightly big portable water pumps. What is amazingis their age. They are in average over 65 years old.
Nowadays, the population of Japan is ageing, andduring daytime, very few young people stay athome or even in the community area. However,nothing will happen if they just complain that young
people do not participate. There are active elderly
residents who step forward and participate in suchtrainings every time. There are also female groups,
and their mean age is above 65 as well.
Such initiatives do not happen in every city, but
still I can say that a large number of communities
have already started this kind of training to prepare
for earthquake-caused fires. Particularly in the
Preservation Districts for Groups of Traditional
Buildings, which are officially specified conservation areas with cultural significance, local communities in each of the district are engaged in disastermitigation activities, in cooperation with the Agency
for Cultural Affairs, prefectural and municipal local

governments and fire risk experts such as us, sothat they can tackle the fires in their early stages or
prevent fire spread even in case of emergencies inwhich official fire-fighting teams cannot help them.
PDNA is very important. But, I consider that the
pre-disaster risk assessment is even more important. Emphasizing the importance of such a preventive viewpoint, I would like to close my presentation. Thank you.
Timothy Curtis:
I think we had a very interesting range of presentations. I’d like to invite all the keynote speakers anddiscussants to come back to the front. Would any ofyou like to start with a question?
Paula Holland:
I would like to ask Robyn Riddett as an agent ofchange in the Pacific, and someone who is trying towork with national disaster management organizations and ministries of finance to promote PDNAs
and better plan for disasters. I am interested in yourremark about corruption and the scope for it in thesystem. I wonder if you would be able to, without
dobbing anybody in, give us some guidance on thekind of risks that exists and how we might minimize
them?
Robyn Riddett:Well, I will not dob anybody in, but I think a lot of
aid money, depending on where you are, never actually meets the target. I think it becomes wasted
and disappears. I think it is very important that you
establish a process where transparency is ensured,
so that people can see clearly where everything isgoing and that it is not going to some officials’ pocket or something.
When people believe that the money that they
are giving or the money they are receiving is notgoing into the right spot, then they are less keen to
give money and less keen to participate. Whereas, if
there is a sense that everyone is working together,helping each other, and being honest about it, I
think that is a very important thing to change peopleʼs attitudes, to make them more cooperative, tomake them more want to work together and to get
to know each other.
Timothy Curtis:
I would like to ask a follow-up question to Giovanni
Boccardi, because this issue of either wastage, corruption or misuse of funds in general development− 142 −

(Session 5)

and humanitarian aid is an ongoing one. It seems
that with a disaster situation, you do have a large
influx of money that comes in a short amount oftime and, therefore, it may be more exposed to thiskind of system. So I wonder whether the PDNA processes, the joint UN PDNA with the World Bank,
EU and other partners, have particular mechanisms, or is it just the assessment.
Giovanni Boccardi:
PDNA itself does not involve any large transactionof money. It is just teams of people working with local governments to assess and plan. Then, when
the real money comes, the system will have to be
set up to ensure transparency. This is a matter ofstandard.
Timothy Curtis:
We faced a situation in Thailand, and I’m not necessarily calling it corruption, where too much money
was allocated for rehabilitation of historic sites following a flood. However, the money had to be spent
within a year after the flood, and things had to move
forward very quickly. Eventually, the conservation
work was done too heavy-handed. In order to avoid
these problems, I think appropriate post-disaster assessments need to come up.
Paula Holland:
Ａ part of the issue with transparency is who should
run the process and who should control it. So when
we did PDNA in Fiji, it was very much controlled by
Ministry of Strategic Planning and Finance. At theend of the assessment process, when the findings
were shared with all the stakeholders, it was madepublic. The press was there, it was televised. It was
followed immediately literally minutes after, by astakeholder meeting to talk about available funds
and where that might be used, and then that wasmonitored. It depends really on who is running theshow and how it is performed. The government had
a vested interest in seeing that the money was used
as well as possible, because there were only scarce
funds. In that case it worked, but then it was also
very problematic.
Robyn Riddett:I think it is also difficult when aid money comesfrom oversea countries where corruption perhaps
does not exist or exists at a very low level to anotherplace where corruption is part of its system andwhere everybody gets their cut along the way.
− 143 −

There it becomes a cultural divide between the local people to whom that is just part of their system
and us from the outside, saying it is something that
we would not support or indulge in ourselves. I am
not sure what the answer to that problem is, but it issomething that needs to be addressed by way oflooking for a solution.
Timothy Curtis:
Let us come back to the cultural heritage. These arebroad issues that are important but transcend cultural heritage.
Kenzo Toki:
I have a question to Giovanni Boccardi about “Building Back Better.” In Japan, every year for 20 years
after the World War II ended in 1945, severe floods
occurred, dykes collapsed, and many people died.
The national government introduced a concept of“kairyo fukkyu” in which it enhanced the safety performance of dykes instead of keeping the same level of safety. This idea of reinforcement, which isprobably recognized as a Japanese practice of“Building Back Better,” is extremely important.
Since around 1968, the number of severe floods has
decreased. Through our experiences, we understand that building back safer and stronger than
before is very effective. In this context, I would liketo ask for your comments on how we can apply an
idea of “enhancing safety and security” to cultural
heritage.
Giovanni Boccardi:
Thank you for raising an important ethical issue in
heritage conservation. You are often not allowed tostrengthen historic buildings by replacing existing
specifications with new technology. However, I consider that there are ways of making historic buildings more resilient and more resistant to different
kinds of hazards, including the use of foundation tie
bars, documentation and establishment of a continuous maintenance process supervised by experts.
In Italy, where there was an earthquake recently,
we conducted an assessment. Its result shows that
almost every building that had been maintained
and restored in the past 10 years was not severely
affected. On the other hand, all the others, whichwere already in a poor state of conservation, hadbeen affected by the earthquake. There was a very
obvious correlation.
When PDNA talks about “Building Back Better,”
it is not only related to the structural aspects but

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

also involves new policies, new measures and amore efficient organization. When you plan for recovery, all the sort of systems around the cultural
sector can be reinforced or improved.
Xavier Romão:I would like to make comments on the presentation
made by Giovanni Boccardi and about distinction
and difference in concepts and how different areas
see the same concepts.
He was speaking about damage and loss andhow damage and loss is interpreted in our case of
the ICORP database or in the case of PDNA. They
are, in fact, different, because the general output ofa PDNA is in economic terms, so basically everything follows the economic concept. So damage andloss are really two economic concepts.
We are dealing with the same information. Everything that the ICORP database needs is in fact a
result or an output of the PDNA. Even if it is not theultimate output in economic terms, physical damage needs to be assessed, so we can actually assess
the cost to repair or the cost to reconstruct. Basically the same information is available from the
PDNA and can be linked to the ICORP database.
That would be, as I said, one of the objectives.
Terr y Cannon:
Two comments. One is for Ai Sekizawa. I found it
astonishing that there were only five fire engines.
Can we have some more explanation of that? And asa follow-up from that, two points: The first one iswhether you can rely on fire engines after an earthquake, when there may be a lot of damage and debris in the roads. The second one is what kind of
lessons came from the fires in Kobe. Because as I
understand it, many of them were caused by inflammable chemicals being kept in workshops in theareas.
My second comment goes back to Giovanni Boccardi on the complication of dealing with damage
and loss, the terminology that is used in economics.
I usually find it much easier to talk about stocks andflows. Stocks are the things that are damaged, andflows are the interrupted flows of income and finances. We can also see this in the context of developing countries, especially in Bangladesh where I
do a bit of work. As damage to assets which areneeded for livelihoods occurs, then the flow of income that goes to these livelihoods is also damaged. These are different ways of using the same
concepts, stocks and flows or assets and livelihoods.

In the recovery process after many disasters,
very little attention is given to the restoration offlows, in other words, to livelihoods. The majority ofrecovery process is to replace stocks, or buildings
and structures. Hardly any effort is going into restoring livelihoods. This is one of the primary humanitarian problems that we have.
For example, you have in Bangladesh tens or
hundreds of thousands of people after a cyclone,
whose livelihoods are destroyed by the saltwater
and who cannot get back into them. An additional
cost to recovery is welfare, which has to be distributed to pay for people for months, if not years.
In Kobe, a similar thing happened with thecranes that were operating for the port. Many of thecranes were destroyed, so the port could not operate for more than 6 months. All of the trade had tobe diverted away from Kobe, so any production in
the Kobe area could not be restored, and there wasa major disruption of thousands of livelihoods. Thisis very difficult to put into the cost of damage.
Ai Sekizawa:Thank you for your question. The area that was
shown in my photo is “Nagata Ward” in Kobe City.
Anywhere in the world, including Japan, fire departments act as a core of firefighting activities. As ahead of the local firefighting authority, the fire chiefof each fire department is empowered to control its
jurisdiction.
Under normal circumstances, an operation-control-center receives a call for emergency service
and has a comprehensive grasp of when and where
fire occurs in a broader area. However, in case of alarge-scale earthquake, sometimes the center of theaffected place cannot maintain this function. Thiscondition brings each fire department difficulties inaccurately understanding where fires occur andwhether it can expect backups from other fire stations.
When the earthquake occurred in 1995 in Kobe,
the Nagata Ward Fire Department was completely
isolated and alone had to deal with the 13 cases offire with its 5 fire engines. It is true that there werea lot of shoes factories in Nagata Ward, and that
more fires occurred there than other wards in
Kobe. But, it is also true that there were fires ineach other wards as well, and no fire engines could
come to Nagata Ward for backup in the initial 2–3
hours after the earthquake happened.

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(Session 5)

Giovanni Boccardi:
There were two comments, one from Xavier Romão
and one form Terry Cannon. If I understood correctly, I need to show that my idea on PDNA is different from what Xavier Romão said. PDNA is not
only about the economic aspect. As I tried to explain
in my presentation, it includes consideration of ahuman development dimension and all the things
that Terry Cannon referred to.
With regard to Terry Cannon’s comment on
stocks and flows, the terminology is used in our
guidance. I thought that it was terminology that waseven more remote to the heritage sector than damage and losses, but it is exactly the same. Precisely
you raised the point that we were making, and I
think which was also mentioned by Paula, that thelosses are often neglected. We focus on the damage, on the cost of reconstructing assets and so
there is a need to distinguish and emphasize thisclearly.
I have the impression that within the heritage
sector, what the typical expert that is sent by UNESCO or ICOMOS to assess the impact of a disasterwill focus typically on, for example in the Philippines, will be on the church that has been destructed; but he or she will not write down in his or herreport all the consequences as a result of this forthe people who need to travel 3 kilometers to go to
the nearest village where the church is still standing, or all the larger implications which the culture
sector locally will have to face any way.
Timothy Curtis:
I think that is an important point. It was perhaps
mentioned earlier in the other areas of the cultural
sector, the cultural industries or in terms of intangible cultural heritage. There the concerns are much
more about losses usually than damage, because
the damage is not the issue.
Michael Turner:
I think that being here in Japan we really should belinking the Nara Document of Authenticity to thedebate we are having here. We seem to be focusing
very much on the physical fabric especially when
we build back better. Better is not necessarily thephysical aspect, and I think this is an important
point.
We should also think about what we are preserving. We cannot preserve everything, so we should
also think about what we are willing to give up. I
think it is a different way of looking at the same
− 145 −

coin, but it will allow us to be a little bit more interactive to the people who are dealing with activities
in the field, because otherwise we come to a block.
Everybody is willing to preserve St Paul's Cathedral, but then work happens in that gray area andwe have to then approach it in two directions, whichmeans that the PDNA perhaps should be reallycalled the pre-disaster knowledge analysis.
So I think what that really means is to actually
understand the needs. We have to have a set of scenarios, and these are the things which have to happen beforehand so we have, “what if…,” and therefore low probability, high impact scenarios. I mean,
what happens if a plane crashes in an urban area?
Very, very low probability, but if that happens, youjust want to know about it.
I think that these are important parts, and I thinkthat I was just reflecting something that William
Becker wrote in the Washington Post after the Great
Flood of 1993: “The river dwellers of the Midwest
will feel compelled to return to the floodplain, cleaning away the muck and rebuilding their homes andbusinesses. They will be drawn back by tradition by
the magnetism of the rivers and by the convictionthat they have no choice. The nation will emphasize
their losses and admire their grit, but is rebuilding
the floodplain an act of endurance or folly?” So we
can say that we would like to “Build Back Better,”but we are going to have the situation we spoke
about in a previous session, that people are going togo back there, not necessarily because they have noother option, but there might be other aspects involved.
The debate on the Christchurch Cathedral was
really interesting—and also yesterday we heard
about the Bhutan zone—to understand, of course,that each one has got a different approach about
what will happen, what “better” really means. The
question really is, to the first two speakers, the idea
then of data collection. I think that we have to use
Pareto, maximum effect for the minimum effort, todecide how much data you are willing to do, a little
on a lot or a lot on a little, or how are you going tomerge these two ideas.
Giovanni Boccardi:
You ask about what should be in an inventory. I was
not trying to be very sophisticated. I mean, we went
to many countries after a disaster and there was absolutely nothing available, not even a list of the mostimportant sites and monuments with their names
and locations. There was no data on collections

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

within museums. What I am suggesting is just that
we have an inventory, which would be necessary
anyway for the daily management of the cultural
sector.
But complemented by other data, related to thesocioeconomic dimension, the number of people affected, the number of jobs associated to a culturalindustry, etcetera, the PDNA is a very fast andquick exercise. You cannot do a comprehensive
desk review. It has to be done within 1 week, maybe
10 days, if you are lucky. So it will have to be synthetic, many conclusions would be drawn on approximation assumptions, but I suppose with experience, we will be able to understand better. I think
we should not worry about having too much at the
moment because we usually have nothing.
Aparna Tandon:
Building on the comments that were made earlier, I
want to focus a little bit more on the example ofPhilippines. I think our brief was very clear when
we went to Philippines, that we had to concentrateon churches, and so that brings me to the other aspect of PDNA, which is vulnerability assessment.
We need to typify the kind of losses or damages
that people have to look for, because, in the conventional sense, you will not be able to identify them inthe listed heritage. The way heritage is listed andthe way PDNA is driven by in-country teams will
have some bearing on how people will look at flows
and stocks or losses and damage. That is one aspect.
The second aspect is the real implementation aspect. Until and unless you have done your first aid,
until and unless you have done your clearance operations, you will not know whether it is loss ordamage, or whatever. Clear costs will not emerge
and that is not a week-long process.
This is what Corine Wegener said, what I saw in
Philippines, and what I have seen in other disastersituations. In our current situation within our current capacity, it takes 6 months for international response to even get the boots on the ground, so to
speak. So I think this is irrelevant that it could happen. I mean, we will have to take it in small bites.
Giovanni Boccardi:
It is a question of assumptions. You have to approximate. All the other sectors do it in this way. This is
how they raise the $1 billion after the tsunami of2005, which supported all the recovery initiatives. If
we are not able to provide an approximate figure,then we are just out of the picture.
Takeyuki Okubo:
We had a very intense discussion. In line with
PDNA, we could raise topics about communities
and community empowerment. When we consider
who is responsible for the communities’ disaster
response, we need to stress the importance of creating an environment in which community members can get interest in their own culture and heritage and take emergency actions on their own.
In the presentation by Ai Sekizawa, we could see
an example of fire drills among community members which include elders. In this connection, I
would like to ask Shen-Wen Chien to let us knowsome recent efforts in promoting community involvement in Taiwan, as I understand that you aredeveloping a good framework to enhance collaborative communication. Community activities are apart of culture. They should include activities for
DRR and therefore may reflect diversity of thecountry or region.
Shen-Wen Chien:
In Taiwan, most of the fire commissioners in thehigher positions graduated from the police university. This helps create a good human network. We
establish a good connection with the local fire brigade, and the local fire brigade has a good relationship with the citizens. This is the first key point.
Then, the faculty makes efforts to investigate
and survey the local area, the community and the
local society. This leads to more human connections.
For example, people who own cultural heritage
may be connected with graduate students who studied history for over a year. Through university research, graduate student research, officers and volunteers, we establish connections. Also we canmake connections with people related to temples
and the temple owners. We can talk to these people
and share data related to disaster research, not justbased on the building codes or the fire codes or any
published documents from the government as
such, but because we conduct our own investigations to know, for example, about the local cultural
harmonization with the commercial activity, the ancient family preservation structures and so on.
Stefano De Caro:
I share completely the working hypothesis of Giovanni Boccardi. PDNA must be done very quickly− 146 −

(Session 5)

and be short in the first stage, but there should be asecond phase which, because of the economics ofthe after-disaster rescue, is based on the economics
of cultural heritage. That is something new and it issomething not easy to understand. Of course, youhave the most evident, selling book publications,and so this is very easy, but in the intellectual activities linked with or depending on cultural heritage,
this can be more complicated.
In my experience, after an earthquake like theone in Campania–Basilicata, just in the following
months it was possible to understand that the rescue after the earthquake was an occasion to maximize the effect of the restorations or the reconstructions, because in many cases there werebuildings that were neglected, which were affectedby the earthquakes. There was cultural heritage instorerooms, and it was an occasion to restore thebuildings and to use them, because one of the needs− 147 −

is to give an effective use to the monuments you arerestoring.
Imagine so many churches that we have in Italy
and that are not any more useful as such. They need
to be reused in some way, and to be used in a cultural way, combining with other things such as cultural industries and so on, maximizing the rescue
funds as an investment, not only as a rescue of theloss. But as for the future, after the earthquake ofCampania–Basilicata, we have opened in one region
more than 40 museums, and this is now yet under
the standard of the northern regions of Italy, so it
was a moment of gain for the future.
Timothy Curtis:
I hope everybody agrees that we could give one
round of applause for all our panelists who havedone a wonderful job. Session 5 is closed now.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Session 6
Investing in Disaster Risk Reduction for
Sustainable Development[Facilitators] Joseph King, Akiko Umezu
Contents
Presentation(6-1)
Training for Strengthening Policy, Planning,Technical, and Institutional Capacity for Heritage Disaster
Risk Management (1)Rohit Jigyasu

Presentation（6-2）
Training for Strengthening Policy, Planning,Technical, and Institutional Capacity for Heritage Disaster
Risk Management (2)Aparna Tandon

Presentation(6-3）
Financial and Technical Assistance for
Emergency Conservation and Long-term Recovery

Henry Tzu Ng

Presentation（6-4）
Disaster Resilient World Heritage Cities

Michael TurnerRoundtable Discussion

Julio Vargas-Neumann,
Xiaofan Du,
Yoshiteru Murosaki,
Osamu Goto

(Session 6)

Presentation (6-1)
Training for Strengthening Policy, Planning, Technical,
and Institutional Capacity for Heritage Disaster Risk Management (1)Rohit Jigyasu
UNESCO Chair Holder Professor,
Institute of Disaster Mitigation for Urban Cultural Heritage,
Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan

What I am going to speak about is the importanceof training for strengthening policy, planning, technical and institutional capacity for heritage disasterrisk management.
We have been talking about disasters and theirimpact on heritage. We have been looking at plentyof examples from around the world, just illustrating
how heritage is at risk to various disasters. But reducing risk to cultural heritage is not merely about
technical interventions for protecting it against catastrophic hazards like earthquakes, floods or fire. It
is about addressing underlying causes that create
vulnerability of cultural heritage to disasters. If we
do not look into these underlying causes, just merely responding to floods, fires and earthquakes, it is
not going to help in the long run.
We are talking about vulnerability and how to address this vulnerability to cultural heritage. In thiscontext, I would like to ask a question if it is merely
physical. If it is only physical, then it is just easy for
us to do such and such interventions that are goingto make your heritage safe enough. However, it ismuch more than physical as my presentation will
illustrate.
Let us consider the challenges that we are facing, which we must address to reduce the vulnerability to heritage in a more proactive sense. First
challenge is, of course, urbanization which is clearly increasing at an alarming rate that puts heritageat much greater risk than ever before. We havemuch more people living in urban areas than in rural areas. This means that heritage is under intensepressure from what is happening around it. It is not
only the buildings themselves but also the entire
context which is changing so drastically and rapidlythat heritage is at much greater risk than ever before.
These urban transformations are causing increasing vulnerability to hazards. Therefore, thechallenge is not just in protecting cultural heritage
but is about managing the entire human habitat. We
should not just limit ourselves to working with her− 151 −itage professionals, dealing only with the brick andmortar of heritage but be ready to work with diverse stakeholders.
We are also facing another challenge of increasing weather-related events such as floods, whichhave been really affecting our cultural heritagearound the world. It is very clear that the frequencyof floods has increased so drastically. Rather thanlimiting it to isolated events, we need to take into
consideration the larger phenomenon of climatechange.
Another major challenge is that of coordination
among various stakeholders. The heritage conservation professionals or organizations, disaster management organizations and the development sector
are somehow working in their own soils with very
little coordination between them. If we have to reduce risks to heritage, we have to address this challenge.
Another point I want to make is that nature ofdisasters these days is increasingly complex andnot merely limited to individual hazards such as
earthquakes, floods or fires, but it is very complex.
For example, Zanzibar is exposed to multiple hazards such as weather-related events like storms,
vandalism and fire. There are issues that are connected to multiple hazards and vulnerabilities, andthe impacts are also more than just the physicaldamage and include the displacement of communities, which also has adverse effect on the heritage.
Therefore, we need to understand this complexity
to reduce risks to heritage.
There are two main issues we need to consider
for reducing disaster risks to cultural heritage. One
is absence of disaster risk management plans forheritage sites. We all know that our heritage sites,
including museums, monuments, complex buildings or urban areas do not have disaster risk management plans in most cases. On the other hand,
there is this lack of heritage in disaster risk management plan for a city. Heritage is not mainstreamed into the disaster risk management poli-

Tokyo Strategy Meetingcies or plans for the country or for the region inwhich the heritage site is located. So we are basically dealing with two sides of the coin.
Which essentially means that if we have to reduce risk, we have to adopt an integrated framework for disaster risk assessment and management
for cultural heritage which takes into consideration
multiple hazards and vulnerabilities; not just physical, but social, economic, institutional, and most importantly attitudinal as well. The latter is an important dimension of vulnerability, because people
sometimes perceive heritage as old and outdated
buildings which are not worthy enough to save andfail to recognize the potential of heritage to contribute in a positive way towards building the resilienceof communities.
The degree of exposure of cultural heritage because of their location and climate change put themat risk, with potential negative impacts on tangible,
intangible, movable and immovable attributes andthe associated values, besides people’s safety, economy and livelihoods, and of course, on the social
structure. Therefore, an integrated framework
helps in making effective change on the ground.
We should focus on creating strategies for reducing disaster risk to cultural heritage that are integrated with planning and development process. We
need to look at enhanced preparedness instead of
only focusing on response and recovery. Unfortunately, even now, we are focusing too much on response and recovery but how to shift to preparedness is a challenge. Better communication isneeded between different disciplines and departments and, of course, innovative technical knowledge that seeks to balance values with safety andshould be economically and socially viable. So theseshould be our primary objectives for building thecapacity for reducing risks to cultural heritage.
Who should be our target audience for building
capacity? These could be decision-makers, responsible for formulating and implementing policies. I
think decision-makers are very important because
professionals cannot really do anything if decisionmakers are not sensitized to the need of disasterrisk management of cultural heritage. So building
their capacity at a higher level is also very important, both at the national and local level as well as at
the level of the municipalities.
Potential target audience also include professionals from cultural heritage, disaster management, planning and development fields, academic
and research institutions, NGOs and civic society

organizations and not to forget local communities.
So we are actually dealing with multiple target
groups and need to address their specific needs.
Besides, we have to address the capacity according
to the social cultural context of cultural heritage.
So, how should we build the capacity? I think
there are few ways in which we can build the capacity. In my view, the most important are the fieldbased training courses for professionals from public institutions, universities, as well as private
practitioners. Secondly, internal capacity of organizations from heritage and other relevant fields suchas planning and disaster management needs to bebuilt. Of course, classroom and web-based teachingis also important now. ICOMOS in cooperation with
ICCROM has tried in Syria one of our distancelearning courses on first aid to cultural heritage,
and we have realized a lot of potential in that. Besides it is important to initiate the dialog with decision-makers, which as I said is very important,training for volunteers and, of course, awarenessraising for local communities and civic societies. If
we have to build capacity, we have to explore different ways of doing it as there is no one-size-fit-for-all
solution.
I’m going to have a small video presentation on
one of the pioneering courses on disaster risk management of cultural heritage that we have been organizing for the last 10 years at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto.
The video can be viewed publicly online;<http://www.rits-dmuch.jp/en/project/itc.html>.
I just want to say one last word. Not many participants can attend this course. However, we really
see this course as a foundation for people to go backand develop follow-up courses in their own countries and their own regions. That is why training
guide based on this course has been developed andis now available online, so that people can access it
and use it freely, and organize courses in their own
countries and regions. Thank you.

− 152 −

(Session 6)

Presentation (6-2)
Training for Strengthening Policy, Planning, Technical, andInstitutional Capacity for Heritage Disaster Risk Management (2)Aparna Tandon
Project Specialist,
Collection Unit, ICCROM

As pointed out by the previous speakers, owing tohuman induced climate change and unplanned development, disaster losses have increased manifold.
These losses also include widespread damage tocultural heritage. Moreover, it has been observedthat pre-existing conditions of poverty, weak governance and/or violent conflict increase a country’s
vulnerability to natural hazard events leading tocomplex emergencies.
Such complex emergencies, which typically involve the interaction of the primary and secondary
hazards with the underlying vulnerabilities, are on
the rise. Protecting cultural heritage during a complex emergency is therefore, extremely challenging
and requires collaboration of disaster risk management and humanitarian relief agencies.
First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis,
is a unique capacity building programme of ICCROM that specifically focuses on the protection ofcultural heritage during complex and large-scale
emergencies with an aim to promote recovery andprevent the creation of new risk.
Between 2010 and 2015, ICCROM has organized
4 international courses and has trained around 100
professionals from over 60 risk prone countries.
The trainees have mixed backgrounds, and are
drawn from the fields of cultural heritage, disasterrisk management, and humanitarian relief.
The training itself focuses on the planning andimplementing responses to protect cultural heritage while humanitarian relief and peacekeeping
operations are underway. Inter-agency cooperationand coordination between diverse actors is therefore a key component of the training. To this end,
the course programme includes emergency simulations that are organized in collaboration with themilitary, the Red Cross and other such disaster response agencies.
The main course topics include: situation analysis, post disaster needs assessment, teambuilding,emergency documentation, evacuation, salvage,
and the stabilization of movable and immovable heritage, and post disaster recovery of cultural herit− 153 −age. The training is mainly hands-on and it emphasizes an integrated approach for the emergency
response and risk reduction of movable, immovableand intangible cultural heritage.
The other important aspect of the First Aid
courses is to identify areas of joint programming
between humanitarian aid and culture sectors. To
this end, we invite professionals from the humanitarian assistance field to jointly analyze existing national and international aid distribution systems.
The aim is to identify relief and recovery programmes that can benefit culture sector. For example ‘cash for work’ initiatives that typically provide
temporary employment for public programmes
could include clearance and sorting of debris at cultural heritage sites.
The multi-dimensional training builds skills formediation and negotiation in order to enhance theparticipants’ ability to navigate local power structures and increase the participation of the marginalized communities in the recovery of their cultural
heritage.
Since the inception of the First Aid training in
2010, a number of national and international organizations have collaborated with ICCROM to organize national and international courses. Key among
them are: The Italian Ministry of Culture, The Italian Red Cross, the Netherlands National Commission of UNESCO, The Dutch Ministry of Culture
and Education, and the Smithsonian Institution.
For the past five years, the Netherlands based
Prince Claus Fund has been supporting the followup of the First Aid training ensuring that once thetraining is over the participants have an opportunity
to replicate the training or undertake emergency
response. The Cultural Emergency Response(CER) programme of the Fund has systematicallyprovided post-training seed grants to the First Aid
trainees resulting in 37 national capacity building
workshops in 17 risk prone countries. Based on the
curricula of the international training, these national workshops were aimed at preparing national
teams of cultural first aiders.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

For example, national workshops in Egypt
helped to prepare the Egyptian Heritage Rescue
Team (EHRT). This team was successful in salvaging the damaged collection of the Islamic museumat Cairo in the aftermath of a bomb attack at the
nearby police station. EHRT is now collaboratingwith ICCROM and UNESCO to protect endangered
cultural heritage in Syria, Libya and Yemen.
To conclude, I urge the participants of this meeting to support and to multiply such training initiatives in order to protect cultural heritage from disasters in the risk prone areas of the world and build
resilient communities.

Note) See the following references for more detailed information
about the ICCROM First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis Programme.
Tandon, A., B. Rouhani, A. Dal Maso, A.H. Salah. 2014. Culture
cannot wait: International and national courses on first aid for cultural heritage in times of conflict. In ICOM-CC 17th Triennial Conference Preprints, Melbourne, 15–19 September 2014, ed. J. Bridgland, art. 0309, 8 pp. Paris: International Council of Museums.
Tandon, A. (2010), First Aid for Haiti’s Cultural Heritage. Museum
International, 62: 65–72. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0033.2011.01747.x− 154 −

(Session 6)

Presentation (6-3)
Financial and Technical Assistance for
Emergency Conservation and Long-term Recovery
Henry Tzu Ng
Executive Vice President,
World Monuments Fund(WMF)

From its early days as an organization, World Monuments Fund (WMF) has worked to preserve heritage sites threatened by disaster; our mission has
been developed out of the efforts undertaken following the catastrophic floods that hit Venice in the
1960s. In Japan specifically, WMF has worked withvarious organizations to restore historic buildings
and cityscapes that were damaged in the Great East
Japan Earthquake of 2011. We have partnered withboth the Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Foundation for Cultural Heritage and Art Research at thesites of Sawara in Chiba, Kesennuma, and Ten-yu-ji
Kannon-do Hall, which is a part of a temple complex
in Miyagi prefecture.
It should be noted that the perspective of WMF
at this conference seems, perhaps, unusual, as weare not an organization that specializes in intergovernmental policies. Our stage, so to speak, is much
more modest; our primary experience as a private
NGO has been in the lessons we learn on the
ground. I do, however, hope that some of the points
I raise here are of interest and will contribute to anunderstanding of heritage preservation as a form ofdisaster relief, both for NGOs seeking to work ininternational disaster relief and for governments
seeking to work with international groups supporting disaster relief efforts.
The points I will raise here are lessons we at
WMF have learned from our experiences supporting heritage preservation in the face of disaster. I
believe that all of us here have our own forms ofguidelines and principles that guide us in our work;
the following—which I will expand on with examples—are just six that have informed our organizational efforts and projects. They are: the preventionof needless further destruction and losses; the coordination of responses from within the heritage
sector; the adoption of long-term solutions; the incorporation of a comprehensive approach to heritage preservation; the combination of restoration
with plans for continued viability; and patience.
First, I would like to say something about theneed for financial and technical assistance for disas− 155 −ter relief. The first funds for disaster relief should
go towards human emergency needs: saving lives,property, and emergency services for food, shelter,and healthcare. This is how it should be. Funds for
cultural heritage, including funds for rebuilding
damaged communities, are in the secondary levelof support. They are needed both in poor countries
as well as developed countries like the U.S. and Japan. No government is rich these days and support
from the private sector can make all the differenceat the local level. Private funds can sometimes bemore responsive, immediate, and flexible than public funds for disasters.
The first point I would like to discuss is the prevention of needless further destruction and losses
following a disaster. Immediately after a natural disaster, the first instinct can be to demolish and clean
up a site. This is often done by construction companies, not heritage experts, and can lead to unnecessary destruction of surviving historic sites that
could be saved. A safety zone—both a physical zone
around damaged areas and in terms of a specifictime period—should be set before any demolition
work proceeds. This gives heritage workers, ideallyarmed with an updated inventory of historic sites, awindow in which to identify sites that should be examined carefully and spared in any mass demolitionor clean-up work.
In the aftermath of both Hurricane Katrina in
New Orleans and the 2010 earthquake that struck
Haiti, relief agencies were quick to demolish entire
communities. WMF worked with local preservationgroups to help identify and mark buildings thatshould be saved. We also set up “command centers”
to coordinate these preservation rescue efforts.
Sometimes this included just pasting large signs onbuildings that said: “This Building Should be
Saved.” Although efforts like this may not always
be possible because of public safety issues, theyshould be encouraged.
The second lesson is the coordination of responses from within the heritage sector. Previously,
Joseph King spoke about the disasters and conflict.

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Although different in origin, the aftermath of natural disasters and conflict can be the same when it
comes to heritage, as they result in immediate andmassive destruction and loss. Support for heritage
relief following a disaster or conflict can be betterorganized and more efficient if all forces working
for heritage would first coordinate their priorities
and efforts. This is more efficient and economical
because it can eliminate the duplicated, sometimes
even conflicting, efforts.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, in New
York, WMF convened essentially all of the preservation groups from the local, state, and national levels. We formed a working group to establish one setof heritage priorities and to represent cultural heritage as a unified voice. Collectively, the groups involved felt that we had a better chance of being
heard if we acted together and agreed on one set ofpriorities.
In terms of the priorities that guided us following
September 11, note the highlighted areas. Althoughthese areas contained many historic buildings, theinitial rebuilding plans included massive demolition
here, with the goal of building sweeping boulevards
with views of the Statue of Liberty. The voice presented by the heritage groups said that the buildings that survived that attack should not be destroyed and that it did not make sense to take downbuildings that were, in fact, viable.
Here, you can see specific heritage sites. On theright is the Corbin Building, which was going to be
demolished for a transportation center. After research indicated that this was one of the first skyscrapers built in New York, we succeeded in saving
the building; it survives now, and the glass-domedtransportation center was constructed next to, rather than in place of, it.
Coordinating responses and speaking with one
voice is not always an easy task, yet this is one example of how it can work with commitment.
The third lesson is the adoption of a long-termview in two ways, the first in terms of understanding that it can take years if not decades to recoverfrom disasters; the second in the creation of emergency solutions that can also have long-term benefits.
WMF did not disband after Venice was out ofperil following the floods in the 1960s. We recognized that there will always be historic sites in peril
globally and that there would be an on-going needfor an institution like WMF that could gather private and public support to help the endangered cul-tural sites. WMF built many new partnerships withfunders; local chapters of the Save Venice organization were created in a number of cities throughout
the United States to raise funds to send to WMF
projects in Venice.
The example of Venice, where our involvement
has included 25 different projects, illustrates that along-term view of heritage preservation takes timeand commitment, from organizations and funders.
A similar lesson was learned in Iraq. After the
major fighting was over, the Iraqi government
asked WMF to help develop a way to make a quick
assessment of its historic sites, particularly thosearcheological sites that were damaged by the war
and looting. Our efforts eventually led to what became the foundation for Arches, which you heard
about from the presentation by Scott Branting. Thisis another example of how, following an immediate
crisis, we tried to develop some long-term lesson or
solution for the future.
The fourth point I present, which I know we all
believe in, is the importance of a comprehensive approach to heritage, or the understanding that cultural heritage involves more than just buildings. Although everyone here understands this point well,in the private sector, particularly with funders, we
may see what is sometimes quite a strong divide
between views of immovable and movable heritage,
and tangible and intangible heritage. Sometimes,
donors are interested in funding only one type ofheritage.
What is required is an effort by heritage organizations to educate donors, and sometimes even ourboards, that heritage preservation, particularly following a disaster, entails a broader approach to supporting projects. As this young man on my right, apriest at a shrine, said so eloquently, a shrine is, at
its most simple, a building; it is not a shrine without
people to worship there, and it is not a shrine unlesstraditional dances take place there, unless it is aplace of worship for a community. Recently, we revised our mission statement at WMF to reflect thisidea—that heritage preservation includes not only
the world’s great architectural spaces and buildings
but also the living heritage component and the artsthat are contained there.
For my fifth and sixth points, I will combine
them and discuss them briefly in terms of the work
WMF has done in Japan in the aftermath of theGreat East Japan Earthquake of 2011. The sites I
will discuss are those that we worked on. I believethat our work at these sites reflects the principles− 156 −

(Session 6)

presented so far. These sites are Sawara and Tenyū-ji.
Sawara, badly damaged in the earthquake, is abeautiful machiya town along a river, the location ofmany types of historic properties. Roughly onethird or more of the historic machiya in Sawara
were damaged in the earthquake(Fig.1, 2); theAgency for Cultural Affairs repaired 100 of them.
With their advice, WMF focused on seven of themachiya that had received a higher prefecture-level
designation because of their historic interiors aswell as exteriors. For many private organizations
like WMF, contributions to private restoration efforts of private property are not possible. However,by working through an NGO, which was created topreserve the historic quality of the city, we wereable to provide the funding that restored thesemachiya back to livelihood.
All of the restored properties were owned by thesame families for many generations. Although thegovernment provides a significant amount of money for support, even in cases like this, the owner is
responsible for approximately 10% or 15% of thecost. Unfortunately, if you have lost your livelihoodand your house, even if you own this damaged property, a sum of 10% or 15% can sound unattainable.
In these examples, WMF covered the owners’
costs to finish the restoration projects. Part of thelesson learned in this experience was that localgroups, if they will accept international private
funds from an organization such as WMF, may haveto create a local NGO and support moves toward
public access and public education.
Kesennuma has been widely discussed here, inpart because it is an important port town, but also
because it was one of the most badly damaged by
the earthquake and tsunami, with pictures of its destruction broadcasted worldwide.

The seven sites that we have adopted, which arenationally registered cultural sites, are the ones thatsurvived. (See the Case Report by Hiroharu Hatanoin the Tokyo Symposium.)As was the case in Sawara, these buildings havebeen owned for many years by the same families.
However, the recovery period will likely be longer
when we consider the issues, which include the rebuilding of infrastructure, embankments, and protection.
Something that added to the pressure felt in Kesennuma was the issuance of a government policy,
which said that, for a certain amount of time after
the tsunami, the government would demolish andclear any damaged building at its own expense. As
you might guess, it would be very tempting for an
owner to accept that kind of offer; if the offer was
not accepted by the stated deadline, the owner
would be responsible for the safety of the damagedbuildings, as well as for the costs of restoration or
demolition.
This example goes back to the first principle I
mentioned earlier—efforts to prevent further damage following a disaster. However, in this case, a
policy that encourages clearing damaged sites
should be examined in terms of whether it puts additional stress on heritage preservation.
Thank you.

Fig.2: Shobundō book store building damaged (Sawara Area)

Fig.1: Former Abusō store building damaged (Sawara Area)− 157 −

Tokyo Strategy Meeting

Presentation (6-4)
Disaster Resilient World Heritage Cities
Michael Turner
Professor,
BEZALEL Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem

The diverse perceptions of disasters are understood
through cultural norms changing through time.
Only the demons in Japanese lore wander between
the living and the dead, sometimes doing gooddeeds in the world, sometimes wrecking havoc.
Ceremonies to drive away the evil spirits were aregular annual feature in village life while latertransformations of the Oni to a more protectivefunction reflect the changes in the evolving society.
In the flood plains of Mesopotamia the narratives ofNoah and Gilgamesh are enacted, and the first documentation of risk preparedness, with Noah building an ark, the details of which provide us with important knowledge for understanding about
preparedness in different geo-cultural traditions.
The ancients in explaining the disasters developed
narratives of which the elements of fire and water
were essential; the floods of Noah and Gilgamesh
and the fire and brimstone of Lot were just the tip of
the iceberg.
What are the post-disaster cultural norms in ourcities? With growth and change being part of theurban processes over time we recognize the optionsof new lives to old cities. Again we need to appreciate the geo-cultural differences with the JudeoChristian approach in Europe of resurrection being
different from the Hindu approach of reincarnationand even the Shinto ideas of regeneration.
Each community of peoples has a different perception for their future ideas and ideals resurrecting the past or reincarnating a new future. Examples abound in literature and the arts; the vision of
the valley of the dry bones breathes life while
Brahmā, the Hindu deva of creation, emerges froma lotus risen from the navel of Vishnu.
We must recognize that there is a wider humandebate, not the buildings themselves but also thesoul of the city. This soul is the ethereal spirit
evoked by local communities and is reflected in theWorld Heritage Nara documents on authenticity
and the intangible heritage conventions including
the theatre, the arts, literature, tradition and memories. All these are a part of our understanding of the
future of our cities in their transformations.
The architecture of our cities is evidence of ourpast, and in the words of Francis Bacon, these become monuments that he coins as “shipwrecks oftime”. We also have ‘scars of histories’, areas andbuildings that are retained for future generations,and yet more we have ‘sites of conscience’ as Robben Island, South Africa and the Island of Goree,
Senegal. Basically, when we contemplate the present, we are actually looking into the past making
decisions for shaping the future.
In the reporting the conservation state of World
Heritage sites, World Heritage Centre has identified 14 primary threats from which disasters are
only one step away. They are in five groups as follows: 1, development and infrastructure, 2, humanactivities, 3, management and legal issues, 4, natural events and disasters and 5, other issues.
Over a quarter of the World Heritage properties
are urban, while the largest single threat is management and institutional factors. However, when we
look at the other threats, the natural events and disasters are the lowest in number, but the highest in
impact. The domino effect in the occurrence of
natural disasters demands an understanding of theother threats being faced and their management.
The multiple threats to Istanbul are emblematicof many World Heritage properties. The continued
degradation of the vernacular architecture in thetimber houses, the quality of repairs, impact of new
development, lack of coordination and the absenceof a management plan are all issues that come together in Istanbul. The disasters in low elevation
coastal zones and the floodplains around the world
can be seen in the well documented examples of Jakarta, Venice and Bangkok.
Threats often create new problems with largescale mitigation plans as the various barrier projects often leading to non-sustainable solutions. Perhaps efforts towards adaptation, as buying higher
Wellington boots, might be more cost effective.
Other issues identified include tourist torrents,
managing enormous numbers of visitors which inturn are creating new patterns and demands on our
culture and environment.
A long-term strategy and vision is needed; this is
not something created in an instant, but is the out− 158 −(Session 6)

come and reflections on the past enabling conclusions for a measured approach and generating a programme for resilience in city management. This
integrative approach presents us the challenges of
the culture of resilience and the resilience of culture.
It should be emphasized that the human factor andcultural norms are critical in understanding how people deal with disasters and the relationships of people to, and the resilience of, their culture.
There have been proposals for a fourth pillar, ofculture, to the current three of sustainable development. Rather than a fourth pillar, I see culture as abrace linking the three existing pillars of sustainability, thereby integrating economic, social and environmental components. For those with an engineering background, it is obvious that a triangle ofthree pillars is a very strong structure. We believethat culture is inherent in all parts of our lives, andby being a brace strengthens the other elements.
Consequently, culture capable of achieving resilience involves a continuous process of self-adaptation and incremental change. For the record, I had
a disaster at home; the sewage overflowed and was
threatening to engulf us. For the immediate family,
this was a major disaster – it did not make the world
news! Disasters occur within our own daily lives
and we all learn how to cope.
There are many system analyses on cycles forcoping, preparations and reactions during and after
disasters. The adaptive cycle shows temporalchanges within a panarchy rationalizing the interplay between change and persistence, between thepredictable and unpredictable, (Holling et al. 2002).
Through the phases of destruction and reorganization a system’s structure is often reorganized by thecreation of a risk management process.
Culture always seems to follow nature. The environmental impact assessment, which is accepted
worldwide is now being appended with heritage impact and risk assessments. Ecological resilience relates to the different assessments in as much as it is
the amount of change needed to transform a mutually reinforcing process. Resilience needs diversity,
natural redundancy, ambiguity, the dynamics ofcreative experimentation and improvisation.
Let us look at some of the influencing factors. If
history never repeats itself, why are we obsessed
for learning from history? It is not the repetition of
events, but the study of the whole field of humanresilience through improvisation and experimentation. Redundancy hypothesis, assumes that morethan one species performs a given role within an
ecosystem, (Walker, 1992) - redundancy enhances− 159 −

ecosystem resilience. Applying this to the languageof World Heritage is in meeting the conditions ofintegrity including “all the elements necessary to
express the Outstanding Universal Value”, and being of “adequate size to ensure the complete representation of features and processes which convey
the property’s significance”. Resilience means that
we provide capacities over and above the minimum
needs or sizes to provide the necessary support toface disasters. It is balanced by providing the minimum necessary and the maximum possible.
We have spoken about comprehensive ideas andthe importance of an integrative approach. The
2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic
Urban Landscape is at the edge of the debate as aplatform to incorporate many of the important tools
addressing resilience and sustainability in the management of the city at all levels. This Recommendation, fairly and squarely, places the notions of cultural heritage within the urban context and it canguide us in the options to making our cities “safe,
inclusive, resilient and sustainable” aligning with
the new UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Evaluating the disaster of 64 AD of Nero, it has
been suggested that there were three importantprinciples (William Ramroth 2007). 1; serious action is only taken after a disaster, 2; improvements
can transcend the disaster component, and 3; disasters play a significant role in shaping history.
Disasters, fires and earthquakes can be seen as
great opportunities. The Great Fire of London in
1666 was seen as a blessing in disguise cleansing
the streets of London from the plague. The subsequent dramas of the debate for change which took
place, including the styles for the rebuilding of St
Paul’s Cathedral left an indelible mark on London
till the disasters of the Second World War. The 1693
earthquake in Sicily, an area then governed by
Spain divided the populace. Ragusa destroyed andwith 5,000 deaths became two communities. One
group preferred to return to the original site andwith emphasis on rebuilding the vernacular. The
other group seized the opportunity by developing a
new site in the most up-to-date styles – the Baroque.
Well, the bottom line is that, as part of the Val diNoto, they are both inscribed on the World Heritage List.
Conversely, the Sicilian earthquake of 1968 in
Gibellina left the city in ruins. The post-disaster solution by the landscape architect Alberto Burri is
worthwhile to consider because this is a denial ofrenewal where you can walk through the streets ofthe village, redesigned as a memory in the land-Tokyo Strategy Meeting

scape. The luck or lack of economic capacity at thetime of disaster is critical for resilience; most cities
show resilience and bounce back while some cities
die - Ragusa and Ghibellina, Rome and Pompeii, Damascus and Scythopolis.
But we also need to address the disasters of conflict for which the best preparation is, in one word,in the language of UNESCO, ‘peace’. If we were tospend our efforts, on peace building and dialogue,
integrated with risk preparedness, rather than postconflict reconstructions, we might be more effective in bringing peoples together.
I grew up in London going to school throughblitzed areas and I always wonder how in 1945, inthe embers of the Second World War that a group ofpeople should come together under the baton of Julian Huxley to write a constitution which calls on
people to “collaborate in the work of advancing themutual knowledge and understanding of peoples…”
and where “peace must .. be founded, if it is not tofail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of
mankind..” We have to bring these values of UNESCO into the debate, as it is this solidarity that is thecultural essence for resilience.
Conflicts leave people and places devastated andthe cultural reactions to the new life in old cities areevident in the differences between London andWarsaw, Berlin and Mostar. In its evaluation for theWorld Heritage status of Warsaw ICOMOS wrote,
there was a question as to whether its historic center so meets the general rule of authenticity and isaccordingly believed that further expert opinion isrequired on this matter. It was finally inscribed also
under criterion (vi) “The Historic Centre of Warsaw
is an exceptional example of the comprehensive reconstruction of a city that had been deliberately andtotally destroyed. The foundation of the material
reconstruction was the inner strength and determination of the nation, which brought about the reconstruction of the heritage on a unique scale (my italics) in the history of the world.”
Furthermore, it was recognised that the HistoricCentre of Warsaw … was the initiation of comprehensive conservation activities at the scale of an
entire historic city which was a unique European
experience and contributed to the verification ofconservation doctrines of practices. The value as
written in the statement is in fact in its reconstruction, not in the authenticity of the original.
The more extreme examples of Auschwitz andHiroshima confront us with value decisions that areboth universal and geo-cultural. How would Hiroshima have looked if they had taken a decision like

Warsaw to rebuild the city? What would have been
the effect on our understanding of the past and themessage for the future? The cultural decision atthat time has now become part of our history.
Finally, we might even consider that disaster in
itself is a value. Reviewing the criteria of World Heritage, could Pompeii be associated with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius as a “superlative natural
phenomenon”, criterion (vii)? Does the site become“an exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition orcivilization, which has disappeared”(iii) or “an outstanding example of traditional human settlement,
vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change”(v)? It could certainly be“ directly or tangibly associated with events of outstanding universal significance”, criterion (vi).
Our conclusion must be that resilience requires
multiple solutions. In our considerations to ‘Build
Back Better’ we need to rethink our definitions of
the word “better”. Better is not necessarily thephysical engineering, but the well-being and spiritof the place. There are three challenges now on theagenda for culture and sustainable development, 1,
social inclusion and the importance of youth, linking to 2, the digital age, including smart cities, social media and crowd-sourcing and 3, providing resilience through management and sustainability.
The culture of resilience and the resilience of
culture provides a 2022 vision for World Heritage
Cities that it can be applied globally. This resiliencemust be seen as an integrated process with social,environmental, and economic components meetingthe challenges of social inclusion, the digital revolution and sustainable development. Putting resilience as an everyday occurrence in the city will harness the intangible heritage of all colours of thecommunity while encompassing many relevant UNESCO conventions and programmes.
To achieve these objectives we will need morecross-cutting inter-disciplinary actions and tools.
We should start by linking the World Heritage Five
C’s, including credibility, conservation, capacity
building, communication and communities to the
Ten Essentials of the UNISDR Resilient Cities Campaign. The Organization of World Heritage Cities
holds its 2015 conference on this very topic and theHangzhou meeting on Culture for Sustainable Development will highlight these issues for the UNHabitat III debate. These tools can assist in providing urban resilience and deem that the city is,indeed, a veritable phoenix.

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(Session 6)

Roundtable Discussion[Facilitators]
Joseph King, Akiko Umezu

Julio Vargas-Neumann (Catholic University ofPeru):My presentation starts with discussions on how to
improve the ICOMOS Charters, and how to preserve vulnerable architectural heritage located inearthquake-, rain-, or storm-hazard areas. This idea
is to think how it is better to conserve heritage. Is it
better to wait for the earthquake to come and destroy the heritage, or is it better to reinforce thecultural buildings with minimal interventions, before the next earthquake, to avoid the destruction?
Actually, the same conservation approach wasapplied to the Chartres Church and Lima San Francisco Cathedral in France. The problems of vulnerable constructions in disaster areas are:- The weakness of earthen and stone constructions.
- The brittle materials and their tendency tounexpected cracking and collapse.
- The cumulative damage of frequent earthquakes and disasters overtime that bringabout the destruction and short durability ofthe built heritage.
Earthquakes lead to collapse and irreparable
loss of earthen heritage. Consider, for example, thePisco Church before 2007 Pisco earthquake. It was
the oldest church in the Pisco area. This church disappeared in 2 minutes during the earthquake. Fromthe images prior to disaster, we could say that theresilience of the building or its state of conservation
looked good in general. Nevertheless, the church
had collapsed in this earthquake. Indeed, our eyes
are very bad sensors to evaluate or assess how wella building can resist a new earthquake; our eyes do
not see the existing structural micro cracks, because the church is painted once a year. We havelost this oldest church forever.
It is possible to make a post factum comparisonof the design criteria. There are three complementary criteria of structural design: based on strength,
stability, and dynamic behavior or performance.
The last one means the use of reinforcement.
When we use strength-based or stability-based
criteria, we will obtain better structural behavior− 161 −

during regular earthquakes, but a major earthquake can totally destroy such repaired building.
On the other hand, when performance-based criteria are used, by carrying on the reinforcements, it ispossible to control structural damage. Continuous
structural reinforcement based on the evaluation ofseismic performance is the only way to protect thebuilding forever. Of course this has to be done before the new earthquake.
Our university has more than 40 years of research experience on the seismic resistance ofearthen and masonry buildings. Through this research, we obtained some results. The “Principles
for the Conservation of Earthen Heritage located in
Seismic Areas” that we developed were adopted by
the ICOMOS Peru National Committee.
From a financial viewpoint, the cost of repair before an earthquake is much lower than the cost for
post-disaster recovery. Japanese and Peruvian professionals organized the “Disaster Management ofCultural Heritage International Symposium 2010,”
whose result document entitled “The Lima Declaration for Disaster Risk Management of Cultural Heritage (2010)” is currently one of the ICOMOS doctrinal texts. The declaration is available on the
ICOMOS website. One of its main statements reads
as: “The world is divided in seismic and non-seismic
areas.” It is an effective idea to establish different
ways in repairing and treating historical monuments to avoid damage by earthquake.
The conservation principles in disaster areas
have 7 pillars. 6 of them are more or less common,but the last one is the most important for the change
to happen. It is the understanding of the building
structure. This is needed to make a good assessment of cultural and structural values before theintervention, and to guarantee the safety of theworkers. It is also very important to increase thedurability of historical buildings, to maintain materials and traditional techniques, to minimize intervention, to respect authenticity assessment of thecultural and structural values, to use compatible
preventive reinforcement, to preserve original materials, to ensure the reversibility and retrievability

Tokyo Strategy Meetingof interventions, and to permit the future conservation works and access to documentation. Thankyou.
Xiaofan Du (Fudan University):
China is a large country with a large population. It
is also a disaster-prone country. Taking this opportunity, I’d like to briefly explain to you the situationin China.
On May 12 of 2008, in Wenchuan, Sichuan province, there was a big earthquake. Before this earthquake, even though there were disasters, the protection of cultural properties or heritage was notbroadly discussed in Chinese society. There were
only limited activities. The Wenchuan earthquake
caused a major change to China’s disaster response
policy because shortly after this China started receiving overseas assistance, and also people started
to pay more attention to the protection of cultural
heritage.
The designated cultural and natural heritage waspreserved, but also physical results of geographicaland geological phenomena affected by the earthquake and the damaged architecture have beenpreserved and displayed in a museum dedicated to
the great earthquake. This kind of debris is now
preserved as ruins.
Regarding the cultural heritage and disasters,
massive amount of papers and data have been announced. So, if you just Google the great Wenchuan
earthquake and cultural heritage preservation, you
can access maybe millions of pieces of information.
It was not possible to do that prior to the disaster,
but now you can get access to a lot of information.
After that, at the national level, many activities
have been pursued relating to disaster prevention
for cultural heritage. China’s disaster response activities are quite similar to those of Japan. Volunteers, local governments, the central government,
and international cooperation are at the core of disaster prevention. However, in China, the national
government has very strong power, so in times ofdisaster, not only the central government, but also
the local governments provide assistance.
After the Wenchuan earthquake, the affected cities responded with a lot of relief efforts. For example, the Shanghai City Government provided assistance to Dujiangyan City. Not only did it provide
funds and material assistance, but they also helped
execute a 5-year recovery plan. Because of this, Dujiangyan was able to achieve economic recovery 10
years ahead of schedule. In addition, the residentsof the affected areas were able to enjoy even morestable livelihoods than before, and there has been amajor improvement in transportation and residences compared to the pre-disaster days.
So, overall, good results have been achieved. But
for us, the conservators of cultural heritage, not allof the results were good because, depending on thecity or the municipality, in some areas, especiallywhere religion is weak, the character of the place,its traditions and cultural properties have been lost.
We can see one example in Hunan province.
I would like to present you an example of a Jiuzhai Village. It is a small village, located in thenorthwestern part of Sichuan province. On April
20th of 2013, there was a big earthquake thatcaused lot of damage. Of 178 housing units in thevillage, 126 houses were destroyed fully and 52
houses experienced partial loss or damage. After
that, Shanghai Tongji University came up with a recovery plan to be carried out at this village.
After the great Wenchuan disaster, a lot of recovery activities and international support took place,but among the most effective activities were someadjustments made to the reconstruction plan. An
important point was that reconstruction plan was
evaluated and adjusted by the villagers, and about
half a year was spent listening to the villagers’ opinions and requests.
The recovery plan was put together in a way thatwould ensure the maximum preservation of the
pre-disaster landscape, and during the last year, thisplan was implemented. Reconstruction activities
did not affect the farmland, and the wooden architecture and culture landscape of Jiuzhai Village waspreserved. In the coming period, our next task is tostimulate economic and social development and assert to what extend the livelihoods of the residents
can be improved. The villagers are not just living tosafeguard cultural heritage. That concludes mypresentation. Thank you for listening.
Yoshiteru Murosaki (Kwansei Gakuin University):
Today I would like to talk about what is needed toconserve cultural heritage and how such support
has to be done.
I think there are four things that we need. I
would say, E for encouragement, W for wisdom, S
for skill and N for network. In other words, cultural
heritage has to be looked holistically from all four
points of the compass, east, west, south and north. I
consider that these four points are significant.
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(Session 6)

With regard to “skill,” I think it have been already discussed today from various aspects, so I am
not going to talk about skills at this point. Anotherone is “network,” which is quite important. I would
like to expect continuous further discussion in future. Networks are various, including networks ofpeople, networks of different disciplines. We needto create networks so that cultural heritage can besupported and conserved by society as a whole.
Therefore, it is essential to continue considering
how to develop networks from every possible angle.
However, today, I would like to focus on “wisdom” and “encouragement” in more detail, because
the other two were already discussed, but these twowere not.
First of all, wisdom, which is also knowledge. In
this regard, I particularly learned a lot during theEast Japan Great Earthquake, so I would like tobase my discussion on this experience when I talkabout wisdom. I think that, in order to know how we
can protect cultural heritage, we need to know how
cultural heritage is being damaged. In the case of
East Japan Great Earthquake, cultural heritage wasdestroyed in many different ways. First, because of
the big tsunami and big seismic vibration, heritage
properties were broken and destroyed, which was
already mentioned by many participants. But another thing I would like to mention is that not onlyis the destructive power of disaster affecting cultural heritage, but the processes of recovery andreconstruction can destroy cultural heritage as
well.
Usually, restoration and recovery activities aim
to preserve cultural heritage; however, in reality, a
lot of cultural properties are being destroyed in thereconstruction process. The case presented by Xiaofan Du is very similar. The Sichuan Province saw
a great urban development, but whether it let to theprotection of cultural heritage or not, is a big question.
I think, there are several points to the problem ofcultural heritage destruction in the course of reconstruction. First problem, I think, is unique to theJapanese political tradition, which has a principle ofseparation of religion and government. Because religion is a very personal thing, we have taken theposition not to support it on the political or governmental level. Of course, National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties are protected as common heritage for Japanese people, but when local
temples or shrines get destroyed, there is no finan− 163 −cial support coming from the national and local government. Even though private houses may receive
funding for the recovery, the shrines will not. As aresult, restructuring and recovering for the shrines
is very difficult.
On the other hand, for the affected people, when
they see that their shrines or temples are back, they
feel that their villages are truly restored. Therefore,
they need to be supported as very important spiritual symbols of the communities. But because of theseparation between religion and the politics, thegovernment cannot give any subsidies for the restoration. This is a problem.
Next is the destruction of cultural heritage by
the disaster prevention. During the Great Hanshin
earthquake, the houses broke down because of theheavy roof tiles. Traditional roof tiles are very important element of Japanese culture, created withthe use of local resources. However, because they
were regarded to be heavy, they were replaced during the restoration works, and along with them, theold architectural knowledge of the traditional Japanese wisdom was all thrown away. Now, in Tōhoku
area, people are trying to relocate to higher elevation areas, and by doing so, they are breaking ties
with the beautiful nature and the land where theyused to live. Separation from land is closely related
to the loss of culture. So, my second point is that
excess emphasis on disaster prevention is destroying cultural heritage.
The other thing is that in the aftermath of thedisaster, there is a need to build houses at lower
costs and higher speed, so that traditional building
techniques are being rejected. In the case of Kobe,
we were told that we have created a town that looks
like Spain. Now, in Tōhoku area, we will be probably told that we created a townscape of the US, because of the two-by-four buildings we are building
there. When the new technologies are actively introduced, the traditional technologies are being rejected.
We have to think about the cultural preservation,
knowing about the dangers of the recovery process. We have to respond to such a situation withvery clear view, otherwise we will be destroying
cultures one after another.
In conclusion, just a few words about Encouragement. In a nutshell, culture is not supposed to be
destroyed, but should be used as a vehicle for restructuring or restoring the society. Culture will
give the courage and braveness to live through thedifficulties. I think we have to celebrate cultureTokyo Strategy Meetingfrom this point of view. Thank you.
Osamu Goto (Kogakuin University):Firstly, I would like to introduce JFABEA’s recent
efforts. JFABEA is the Japan Foundation of Architects and Building Engineers Associations. Afterthe Great East Japan Earthquake (2011), we developed a manual for investigation and restoration ofheritage buildings damaged by earthquakes. It is
divided into three parts. The first part is dedicatedto the emergency and covers the period of around
one month immediately after the disaster, explaining how the research and studies should be done.
The second part is dedicated to the early post-disaster activities and covers the 6-month period after
disaster. In this stage, first aid and simple repairs
are the most essential, so the manual explains theproper methods of surveying and restoration. The
third part is dedicated to the period after 6 months,
when the full-fledged recovery is conducted, andexplains the proper methods of surveying and restoration at this stage. What is important is the third
stage full-scale recovery and rehabilitation stage.
The methods described here are suited not only forthe post-disaster situation, but also for the preventive measures before a disaster occurs.
We would like to propagate such information tosociety, so at JFABEA, we have developed an educational program in historical preservation for professional architects and building engineers. We callthese people “Heritage Managers.” Through ourheritage programs, the experts are trained in 33
prefectures out of the 47 prefectures in Japan. Already more than 2000 people have attended thecourse. That means that 60 hours of lectures andtrainings were performed in a year. Moreover, a
network of professional architects and engineers
who finished this course has been established inorder to prepare for the future possible disasters. I
act as a chair of this nationwide network.
I would also like to take this opportunity to explain about fire prevention activities in Japan, somepart of which Ai Sekizawa has already mentioned.
In Japan, the general public is very conscious of disasters and actively participates in local fire drills. I
have looked at the current situation in various countries, and I think this feature sets Japan apart fromthe rest of the world. On the other hand, the national government of Japan uses sophisticated technology to protect cultural heritage. Very often, however, they just throw in expensive equipment
without insuring proper risk management. This is

not an ideal situation. When automatic equipment isinstalled, the residents tend to think that the fires
will be automatically extinguished. So, in many cases, I have observed that this expensive equipment
is not utilized effectively.
Rather than enhancing the equipment, it is important to think about measures that would use theunique characteristics of the Japanese public to actively participate in disaster trainings. Therefore,
together with Ai Sekizawa, we have established aJapan Association for Fire Science and Engineering, and we are currently creating the guidelines offire prevention measures for cultural heritage.
As one of the university projects at my lab, weare rebuilding a house affected by the disaster in
Ishinomaki City along the Kitakami River in Miyagi
Prefecture, which was struck by the tsunami. This
house was repaired by the university with the donations from private sector companies. The locally
produced natural slate is used in this building as
traditional building material; actually, some of it was
imported from Spain, but anyway, the construction
was made with attention to local craftsmen and local
products, including slate and timber.
Also, by reconstructing the vacated former clinic, we created housing for two families, and the victims of disaster are living here now. Temporary
housing is much talked about in Japan these days,
but utilizing the assets that already exist, I think,
can lead to the faster recovery and reconstructionof livelihoods. Although not as well-known, this isalso one project we are engaged in. We have beenable to do all this because, as a university lab, we
had often visited the localities and built connections
with local civil engineers and craftsmen. It was nota sudden idea of a project just because of the disaster. This project owes its success to the long-standing communication with local people that we had
previously created.
Lastly, with a lot of assistance from many people,
we are restoring the Ogata Family historical residential house in Kesennuma City, which was damaged by the tsunami. Again, our university lab had
conducted fieldwork in this area prior to the disaster. After the disaster, our students, together withlocal craftsmen, dismantled the building and transferred all of the materials to a different place forsafekeeping. In order to show that we can reconstruct the building in the future, we are performing
temporary assembling in front of many people. Currently, local urban planning is now being formulated, so the location for the building has not yet been
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(Session 6)

decided upon, but the university is making sure thatit can be rebuilt in the future. This reconstruction is
supported by funds from various private sector
foundations. So that was my brief presentation.
Thank you.
Joseph King:
Thank you very much. In the last several presentations there was a reference to investments. Investments can be not only in project activities, but also
in human and institutional resources. So, I thinkthat is a very important point. We have no time left,but I am going to open the floor just for a few question.
Rohit Jigyasu:
This is in response to the last two presentations:when we think about culture and its role in the recovery process, we sometimes forget that culture isnot something that you just keep as a product. It isthe communities who have to have the ability. If you
give them the ability, they will be able to bring backthe culture because they carry it with them. The
problem is that many times we do not rely on communities as inherent carrier of culture. This is one
thing which I wanted to mention because in many ofthese recovery processes, culture is looked at as avery static product, which is really a problem.
Also a second point I want to make is that I think
we only look at it in a very short duration, but weforget and move to the next disaster, which is moresensational. Actually, the process of bringing backculture and getting back to resilient normalcy happens in a very long time frame. It does not happen
immediately. So I think it has to really be given along time, and all the NGOs, all the organizations
just jump in and do whatever they can and then they
move to the next disaster. When we come back tothose communities who are left, then we realize actually that there is no support mechanism. So, culture is really helped in that time when there is nobody else to really help them from outside. So time
is a very important part in the recovery process.
Akatsuki Takahashi:
I would like to thank Michel Turner for mentioning
about periodic reporting. Periodic reporting is reporting on threats, as I am sure you are very aware
because you were the Vice President of the World
Heritage Committee. The World Heritage Committee, and also the committee for the Second Protocolof the Hague Convention had been discussing how− 165 −

to effectively strengthen the synergy between thetwo conventions, the World Heritage Convention
and the Second Protocol. One way of doing so is to
use reporting systems, periodic reporting and also
the state of conservation reporting, and I agree that
this would be very effective, to systematically collect data and also mainstream DRR of cultural heritage as far as the World Heritage Sites and also built
heritage. This is one comment.
The second part is a question to Osamu Goto.
You mentioned the training course for Heritage
Managers, the Heritage Manager course program.
I would like to know what kind of program is required to get this qualification? Is that qualification
accredited by the government? How can they contribute to DRR of the cultural heritage? Thank you.
Osamu Goto:
This accreditation is conducted by the Japan Federation of Architects and Building Engineers Association (JFABEA), which is an NPO. JFABEA federates all the 47 prefectural associations. The
curriculum is given to each association. There ismuch flexibility given to each association because
their conditions are different, so each association isable to conduct the courses with their own content.
Some of the lectures or the courses are only for licensed architects, some include site managers.
They differ according to the region.
In general, the content is divided into generalconservation issues and technical restoration issues. Site managers are only required to masterthese two. Then, in the terms of specialized technical issues, such as building regulations, seismic
measures or structural calculations, only professionals, namely licensed architects, are required toproceed.
We allow freedom to the 47 prefectures, and determining national uniform judgments is easy. All inall, the fundamentals are decided by the central
body of JFABEA. We can safely say that they are theNPOs, so that national or local governments havenothing to do with the contents. However, MLIT
and ACA subsidize their activities and support JFABEA.
Regarding disaster preparedness, each association has built a mailing list system for disasters.
Members of the associations are registered in thesystem, and at the time of a disaster outbreak, thecentral body will be the headquarters for information. The central body collects the reports from theassociations affected by the disaster, and asks non-Tokyo Strategy Meeting

affected or less-affected associations for help. JFABEA now works to establish the network in cooperation with the Architectural Institute of Japan,
with which they have built a database of culturalproperties.
One thing we always bear in mind is that the 47
prefectures are independent. In the event of a disaster, affected places may be far from the center of theprefectural government and closer to the borderwith adjoining prefectures. In this situation, the central body of JFABEA might be able to ask neighboring associations for rescue operations. In Kyushu(the most southwesterly of Japan’s four main islands), the associations are carrying out training
programs for cases of disaster.
Michael Turner:
I am sorry that Sue Cole is not here to answer, butseeing that I have reviewed the proposal, I think I
can answer. The problem between the Second Protocol and the World Heritage Convention is a problem of definitions, the whole issue of what is OUV,
Outstanding Universal Value, and what is being
managed within the Second Protocol. I did participate in one of the meetings in Geneva, and it justhighlights the importance, not the standardizationof harmonization, so I do not think that it is possible
to change each of these conventions. But a way that
we can then manage to understand what one convention is doing with the other one to try and makea full coordination is something which I think is“mission impossible” and would be self-defeating,so that is the first point.
The second one is that of interpretation. I thinkthat we speak about values, but values are only
meaningful when we understand the interpretation.
In the Islamic world, everybody would agree about
Allah, but the interpretation of the Sunni and Shiites
might be different. So I think that this is anotherissue which is going to have to be brought to thetable.
Joseph King:I think that was very interesting session. I am goingto give the floor to Giovanni Boccardi, who is goingto make a comment.
Giovanni Boccardi:
Thank you all very much and good luck and enjoy
your group discussions.

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